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The  staff  method 


THE   STAFF   METHOD 


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The  Staff  Method 


BJ/THE 

REV.  S.  S.   MITCHELL,  D.  D. 

Pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 


PHILADELPHIA 

PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD   OF   PUBLICATION 
AND  SABBATH-SCHOOL  WORK 

1904 


Copyright,  1904,  by  the  Trustees  of 
The  Presbyterian  Board  of  PubUcation  and  Sabbath-School  Work.  | 

Published  May,  iq04 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I.     The  Staff  Method 3 

II.     The  Divine-Human  Face 25 

III.  The   Skepticism   of   Prominent  People    .    47 

IV.  Jesus'  Royal  Grant 69 

V.     The   Biblical   Species 87 

VI.     Spiritual  Novelties iii 

VII.  The  Sifting  of  the  Sensuous  Life  .   .    .135 

VIII,     Two  Great  Deeps 159 


THE  STAFF   METHOD 


THE  STAFF  METHOD 
I 

THE   STAFF  METHOD 
"  The  child  is  not  awaked." — 2  Kings  iv  :  31. 

Doing  good  by  indirection,  at  arm's  length, 
through  a  substitute,  by  a  check — the  impersonal 
staff  method  is  in  danger  of  being  overworked  in 
our  day. 

Notice,  I  pray  you,  a  familiar  type  of  this  imper- 
sonalism  upon  the  lower  level,  that  you  may  be 
prepared  to  recognize  it  upon  the  higher.  When 
the  man  first  commenced  business  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  see  everyone  who  called.  But  with  the 
growth  of  his  business,  and  the  increase  of  his 
power  and  fame,  this  simple  and  direct  meeting 
with  his  individual  patrons  came  to  an  end.  Now, 
if  you  will  call  at  the  man's  office,  unless  your 
business  is  of  the  first  importance  and  you  your- 
self somebody  in  particular,  you  will  see  nothing 
of  the  head  of  the  firm.  First  the  doorkeeper  sifts  ; 
then  the  head  clerk  sifts;  then  the  junior  partner 
sifts  ;  and  only  the  elect  can  penetrate  to  the  inner 

3 


4  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

sanctum,  upon  the  closed  door  of  which  stare 
the  letters  of  the  word  "  Private."  Personality  has 
vanished  from  the  public  office,  leaving  an  imper- 
sonal mechanism  in  its  place.  From  the  inner 
office,  three  rooms  deep  from  the  street,  the  great 
man  sends  his  staff  to  do  the  work  that  comes 

unto  him. 

Time  was  when  the  poor  woman  who  brought 
her  child  in  her  arms,  or  the  laboring  man  who 
could  only  get  to  the  office  after  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  was  met  by  the  doctor  himself,  who  by  a 
personal  interest  in  their  cases,  and  by  a  personal 
attention  to  their  necessities,  did  them  more  good 
than  all  his  medicines.  But  now  practice  has 
increased ;  fame  has  come ;  a  sense  of  power  and 
greatness  has  waxed  strong ;  and  as  a  result  all 
ordinary  cases  must  be  turned  over  to  the  assist- 
ant. No  doubt  there  is  a  necessity  compelling 
unto  this  state  of  things.  Brain-power,  heart- 
power,  nerve-power,— no  man  can  give  without 
limitation  these  precious  and  remedial  forces  to 
those  who  have  need.  Let  us  then  lift  up  no 
voice  of  criticism  or  fault-finding.  Instead,  let 
us  quietly  take  our  seat  in  the  outer  office 
and  wait  our  turn  to  see  the  assistant,  and 
then  as  quietly  come  away  with  the  assurance 
that   we  have    received    all   we    had   a    right   to 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  5 

expect.  To  be  sure,  the  man  himself  did  not 
see  us,  but  the  office  did.  We  had  the  benefit 
of  the  staff. 

Now  these  common  pictures  to  be  seen  upon 
every  side  of  us  are  not  a  bad  representation  of 
that  which  has  come  to  be  a  common  occurrence 
in  the  moral  world.  When  he  himself  was  weak 
and  unknown,  the  man  kept  his  Sunday  class  in 
the  Mission  School.  But  when  success  came  and 
prosperity ;  when  the  man,  through  development, 
became  a  power  in  the  community,  he  withdrew 
from  the  ranks  of  the  Mission  workers,  compell- 
ing the  drafting  in  of  a  new  and  weaker  substi- 
tute. Now  the  man  sends  his  check  regularly 
once  a  year,  but  he  himself  no  longer  knows  the 
way  unto  the  Mission. 

When  the  woman's  time  was  as  plentiful  as  it 
was  cheap,  she  used  some  of  it  in  visits  of  per- 
sonal condolence  and  sympathy.  Now,  however, 
since  her  husband  has  become  wealthy  and  she 
herself  a  leader  in  society,  she  has  given  up  all 
such  personal  service.  Instead,  now  she  sends  a 
bundle  of  clothing,  or  some  jelly,  or  a  gift  of 
money. 

Now  it  may  have  been  something  like  this 
which  happened  in  the  case  of  Elisha.  Suddenl}'-, 
with  the  departure  of  Elijah,  he  had  blossomed 


6  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

into  a  full-grown  prophet,  walking  the  earth  as 
if  hand  in  hand  with  the  Infinite  One,  and  doing 
wonderful  works  of  mercy  and  of  power.  With 
this  new  importance  and  with  the  great  multiplica- 
tion of  his  daily  cares  and  duties,  it  would  not  be 
strange  if  the  prophet  came  unto  an  undue  sense 
of  the  importance  of  his  personality  and  unto  the 
conviction  that  he  could  not  afford  to  give  his 
personal  attention  unto  every  case  of  need  that 
presented  itself  So  when  the  poor  Shunammite 
appeared  before  him,  he  cried  out :  **  Her  child  is 
sick,  her  child  is  sick ;  run,  Gehazi,  with  my  staff." 
Or  he  may  have  thought,  as  the  great  physician 
seems  sometimes  to  conclude  concerning  his 
office,  "  Everything  connected  with  me,  every- 
thing belonging  to  the  great  prophet,  is  full  of 
virtue;  run,  Gehazi,  with  my  staff."  But  what- 
ever was  the  feeling  or  conviction  which  led  to 
its  use,  the  staff  method  did  not  prove  a  success 
in  Elisha's  case. 

"And  Gehazi  passed  on  before  them,  and  laid 
the  staff  upon  the  face  of  the  child  ;  but  there  was 
neither  voice,  nor  hearing."  Immediately  the 
prophet's  proxy  turns  back  unto  his  master  with 
this  announcement  of  failure :  "  The  child  is  not 
awaked,  the  child  is  not  awaked."  Oh,  Elisha! 
great  as  thou  art,  thy  staff  is  not  yet  sufficient  to 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  7 

do  thy  work  in  the  world.  Thou  thyself  also  art 
needed. 

But  let  us  turn  from  these  introductory  thoughts 
unto  the  direct  consideration  of  the  subject  thus 
brought  before  us.  I  indicate  two  general  lines 
for  the  guidance  of  your  thought : — 

First.     The  faultiness  of  the  staff  method. 

Secondly.  The  requisitions  which  evermore 
issue  for  the  presence  of  the  person. 

The  first  prominent  fault  of  the  staff  method  is 
this :  It  is  a  withholding  of  that  which  is  the 
finest  and  grandest  power  of  the  human  life.  The 
human  mind  or  spirit  possesses  a  mysterious 
power  of  reaching  the  human  mind  and  spirit. 
So  evident  is  this  that  some,  as  Sir  William 
Thomson,  have  gone  so  far  as  to  call  this  power 
the  sixth  sense.  The  living  man  wields  a  power 
that  his  words  do  not  possess  and  which  his 
agent  cannot  carry  with  him  or  exercise.  When 
Daniel  Webster  rose  from  his  seat  at  the  dinner- 
table  although  frequently  he  said  but  little,  and 
that  little  commonplace,  the  whole  company  felt 
his  power.  It  was  the  force  of  his  personality 
which  bore  them  down.  Men  act  upon  this 
principle  in  all  secular  matters  of  first  importance. 
When  a  business  transaction  of  great  magnitude 
is  to  be  determined,  the  telegram  is  not  sent,  or 


8  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

the  letter  written,  or  the  confidential  clerk  dis- 
patched, but  the  man  goes  himself.  Yet  not 
always  do  men  so  act  in  the  field  of  moral  ser- 
vice. The  banker  says  :  "  This  is  to  be  a  busy 
day  with  me.  I  wish  you  would  send  to  the  City 
Missionary  and  have  her  call  upon  that  poor 
family  of  whom  we  were  speaking,  and  tell  her 
if  she  will  come  to  my  office  on  her  way  I  will 
give  her  a  check."  The  woman  says  :  "  Every 
hour  of  my  day  is  taken  up.  It  will  be  impos- 
sible for  me  to  make  the  visit  to  Mrs.  A.  that  I 
had  purposed.  I  am  sorry  for  this,  for  I  hear  the 
poor  woman  is  in  great  affliction  over  the  loss  of 
her  husband.  Still,  I  will  endeavor  to  send  her 
some  articles  of  clothing,  of  which  I  hear  she  is 
greatly  in  need." 

So  also  the  inferior  life  is  sent  as  a  substitute, 
as  well  as  the  check  or  the  bundle  of  clothing. 
The  man  draws  out  of  the  charity  board  or  the 
mission  when  he  is  in  the  full  bloom  of  his  per- 
sonal power,  saying,  as  he  does  so,  "  I  must  con- 
tent myself,  for  the  future,  to  work  by  proxy  in 
those  needy  fields."  So  men  and  women  send 
the  staff  to  do  the  Lord's  work  instead  of  going 
themselves,  and  in  so  doing  hold  back  from  moral 
service  the  finest  power  that  they  possess.  It  is 
in  man,  what  Jesus  Christ  had  been  guilty  of  if 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  9 

He  had  sent  to  our  world  a  book,  or  a  messenger, 
instead  of  coming  Himself. 

Another  fault  inhering  in  the  staff  method  is 
its  non-recos"nition  of  soul  life  in  those  who  are 
to  be  served.  There  is  no  law  more  fundamental 
than  this — "  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  na- 
tions of  men  for  to  dwell  upon  all  the  face  of  the 
earth."  Or,  as  Jesus  Christ  puts  it — "  One  is 
your  Master,  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  The  igno- 
rant are  so  many  darkened  souls ;  the  hungry  are 
human  souls  in  a  starving  body;  the  human  need 
that  cries  out  for  help  is  the  cry  of  a  human  spirit. 
Now,  the  sending  of  the  money-staff  or  the  old- 
clothes-staff  is  a  non-recognition  of  these  souls, 
and  by  this  fact  the  sending  must  be  adjudged  as 
poor  and  imperfect.  I  remember  very  well  that 
the  giving  of  money  or  of  anything  else  is  not  so 
impulsive,  or  widespread,  or  general  as  to  render 
necessary  any  words  to  be  spoken  against  it. 
Such  words  I  am  not  speaking.  All  that  I  affirm 
is  that  the  giving  of  things  cannot  fill  out  the 
measure  of  obligation  that  we  owe  to  living  souls. 
Often  what  the  unfortunates  need  more  than 
money  is  a  new  endowment  of  moral  force.  They 
need  the  reestablishment  of  their  self-respect;  the 
joy  of  a  new  hope;  the  tonic,  the  inspiration  of  a 
new  courage,    and    these    necessities    cannot   be 


lo  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

passed  to  them  in  the  shape  of  a  check.  Only 
Hfe  in  personal  contact  can  beget  hfe.  Only  love 
can  inspire  love.  Only  souls  can  breathe  new 
life  into  souls. 

But  let  us  pass  to  the  more  important  part  of 
our  subject — the  authoritative  requisitions  that 
evermore  issue  for  the  presence,  in  the  field  of 
human  need,  of  the  person. 

The  first  of  these  issues  in  the  name  of  charity. 
Sweet  Charity  she  is  sometimes  called,  although 
this  pet  name,  it  is  to  be  feared,  is  sometimes  given 
her  by  those  who  strangely  confound  the  odorless 
character  of  her  serene  majesty  with  the  more 
earthly  sweetness  that  diffuses  itself  throughout 
the  Ball  which,  without  any  very  good  authority, 
is  dedicated  to  her  name.  The  requisition  here 
issues  for  the  protection,  for  the  defense,  of 
charity.  Giving,  from  which  personal  knowledge 
and  personal  administration  are  excluded,  is  apt 
to  do  more  harm  than  good.  The  Charity  Or- 
ganization Society  of  New  York,  after  the  inves- 
tigation of  thousands  of  cases,  gives  out  the 
conclusion  that,  of  all  applications  for  aid,  less 
than  one  in  sixteen  require  continuous  help,  and 
less  than  one  in  four  needs  even  temporary  aid. 
Many  a  pauper,  it  adds,  is  found  upon  investiga- 
tion to  be  without  the  necessaries  of  life  in  the 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  ii 

public  gaze,  but  privately  in  full  possession  of  its 
luxuries.  The  Rev.  S.  A.  Barnett,  founder  of 
Toynbee  Hall,  after  a  wide  experience  and  ob- 
servation, declares  that  it  is  well-nigh  impossi- 
ble to  give  to  people  what  they  ask  for  without 
doing  them  a  serious  injury.  The  conclusion, 
therefore,  would  seem  to  be  inevitable  that  unless 
we  are  willing  that  charity  should  be  turned  into 
a  failure  and  farce ;  unless  we  are  willing  to 
offer  her  gifts  as  a  premium  upon  laziness  and 
lying ;  unless  we  are  ready  to  convert  her  heart 
into  a  trough,  into  which  the  swine  of  hypocrisy 
and  dead-beatism  shall  thrust  both  feet  and 
snout;  unless  we  are  willing  to  have  her  fair 
form  pilloried  before  the  eyes  of  the  community 
as  an  evil-doer,  there  must  walk  with  her  through 
the  field  of  human  need  the  person  who  is  to  give 
unto  this  need.  It  is  sadly  and  evermore  true 
that  many  of  the  world's  most  necessitous  lives, 
those  who  are  struggling  against  the  direst 
poverty,  must  be  hunted  out.  These  persons  do 
not  parade  their  necessity,  but  make  the  most 
ingenious  and  pathetic  attempts  to  conceal  it. 
Many  of  them  starve,  or  freeze,  or  commit  suicide 
rather  than  beg.  Take  the  terrible  truth  here  in 
a  single  sentence  as  Henry  George  has  written  it 
down :    "  In    the    richest   city  of  the   world   the 


12  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

mortuary  reports  contain  a  column  for  deaths  by 
starvation."  Now,  such  grim  results  are  possible 
in  that  city  and  other  cites,  not  because  of  the 
lack  of  human  and  Christian  sympathy,  but  be- 
cause there  is  a  lack  of  knowledge,  and  there  is 
this  lack  of  knowledge  because  so  few  of  the 
liberal  and  the  charitable  make  any  personal  in- 
vestigation in  the  field  of  human  needs.  There- 
fore charity  sends  forth  in  her  own  beautiful  name 
the  requisition  for  the  person  of  the  giver.  The 
staff  will  not  answer  here.  What  is  wanted  is, 
that  the  kindly,  and  loving,  and  giving  soul,  shall 
itself  go  unto  the  discovery  of  the  poverty  which 
it  is  so  willing  to  receive.  The  result  of  this 
shall  be  not  only  to  protect  charity  from  the 
abuses  which  now  discredit  her  fair  fame  and 
spoil  her  usefulness,  but  will  also  quicken  with 
new  enthusiasm  her  beautiful  life.  The  first 
requisition  here  issues  in  the  name  that  is  rever- 
enced by  all  mankind,  the  name  of  charity,  the 
sweet  daughter  of  God. 

A  second  requisition  for  the  person  of  the 
good-doer  issues  in  the  name  of  faith,  of  faith 
that  through  all  the  days  of  time  walks  our  earth 
as  charity's  twin  sister.  That  men  may  see  your 
good  works,  and — what  ?  Do  what  ?  Rejoice  in 
your  benefactions  ?     Come  unto  comfort  and  con- 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  13 

fidence  through  your  kindness  and  help  ?  Lift  up 
their  praises  to  crown  your  head  ?  No  ;  not  any  of 
these  things.  That  **  men  .  .  .  may  see  your  good 
works,  and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  " ;  that  men  may  see  your  goodness  and 
believe  in  the  infinite  goodness.  This  faith-pro- 
ducing power  is  the  crowning  glory  of  human 
beneficence.  To  teach  men  God — to  lead  them 
unto  the  belief  of  the  divine — this  is  the  finest 
inspiration,  and  this  the  richest  reward  that  waits 
for  and  crowns  the  serving  life.  For  consider 
that  the  hungry  body  that  is  to-day  fed,  and  the 
naked  one  that  is  to-day  clothed,  will  soon  pass 
beyond  the  possibility  of  these  sensations — lie  as 
so  much  dust  in  a  little  grave,  to  be  hungry  or  cold 
no  more.  The  mind  that  to-day  wanders  in  dark- 
ness will  soon  break  through  its  unfriendly  barriers 
into  the  eternal  light.  The  heart  that  aches  to- 
day and  breaks  to-day  passes  quickly  forward 
unto  the  end  of  its  woe.  "  There  the  wicked 
cease  from  troubling  ;  and  there  the  weary  are  at 
rest."  The  starving  mother  who,  in  the  year  1 890, 
with  her  baby  in  her  arms  threw  herself  off  the 
Hoboken  dock,  to-day  can  look  back  and  say, 
"  It  was  a  grim  moment  for  baby  and  me,  that 
splash  and  clasp  of  the  dark  waters — but  that  was 
all  over  long  ago."     No,  not  in  any  end  bound  up 


14  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

with  the  Hfe  of  this  mortal  body,  not  in  any  mo- 
mentary rehef  from  sentient  suffering  can  be 
found  the  highest  motive  and  the  enduring  re- 
ward of  human  beneficence.  This  fact  makes  the 
giving  of  self  an  indispensable  condition  of  true 
Christian  service.  The  man  of  the  world,  after 
he  has  grown  enormously  rich,  writes  out  his 
check  for  a  Free  Library,  or  a  University  Pro- 
fessorship, or  a  magnificent  church  edifice.  But 
this  act  of  his  has  little  power  to  convince  a  self- 
ish and  unbelieving  world.  Men  will  say  that  this 
is  only  so  much  restitution.  They  will  scoff  at  the 
act  as  an  offered  atonement — an  attempt,  through 
the  use  of  a  moiety  of  selfishly  acquired  riches, 
to  purchase  standing  here  and  a  place  in  heaven. 
In  the  sense  of  which  we  are  speaking  no 
money  gift  can  reach  unto  the  supreme  end  of 
human  service,  for  it  does  not  certify  the  exist- 
ence of  disinterested  love.  As  James  Russell 
Lowell  has  strongly  said,  the  only  conclusive  evi- 
dence of  a  man's  sincerity  is  that  he  gives  him- 
self. Words,  money,  all  things  else,  are  easily 
given.  But  when  a  man  makes  a  gift  of  himself 
it  is  plain  to  all  that  the  truth  has  taken  posses- 
sion of  him.  When  Governor  Washburne,  of 
Massachusetts,  found  time  in,  or  took  time  from, 
his  official  duties  weekly  to  visit  the  sick  and  the 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  15 

poor  of  his  native  village,  kindly  to  speak  to  and 
to  pray  with  them,  he  thus  brought  the  Divine 
love  into  the  sphere  of  their  vision — he  thus  led 
them  in  the  direction  of  faith  by  the  sweet  per- 
suasion of  a  Power  which  human  nature  is  unable 
to  resist. 

We  may  as  well  recognize  the  fact,  my  fellow- 
men,  that  a  new  day  in  the  history  of  the  world  is 
upon  us.  Do  you  say  it  is  a  very  restless,  selfish, 
lawless,  devilish  day  ?  Yes,  no  doubt  it  is  some- 
thing of  all  of  these.  Nevertheless  it  is  with  us  this 
day  and  we  are  in  it — a  day  when  the  unfortunate 
and  the  poor  and  the  suffering  can  no  longer  be 
persuaded  nor  charmed  unto  patience  and  content- 
ment by  the  promise  of  a  future  heaven.  The 
poor  and  the  ignorant,  the  anarchistic  and  malig- 
nant, lift  up  their  voice,  and  this  voice  is  the  roar 
of  the  wild  beast,  crying  out,  **  We  demand  a 
portion  of  this  world  also."  Now  it  is  a  vain 
attempt  to  pacify  the  hunger  of  this  fierce  cry  by 
feeding  out  to  it  loaves  of  bread  in  the  fashion  of 
ancient  Rome,  or  bundles  of  secondhand  cloth- 
ing, or  even  the  checks  of  rich  men.  These  will 
be  received,  but  while  they  are  being  used  the 
givers  will  be  cursed  with  curses  deep  and  bitter. 
There  is  no  God  in  this  form  of  beneficence,  no 
God  for  those  who  need  Him  most.     There  is  not 


i6  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

the  demonstration  of  disinterested  love  within  it. 
No,  the  staff  of  indirection,  of  arm's-length  ser- 
vice, of  proxy  virtue  meets  not,  serves  not,  the 
great  need  of  our  day.  The  wild,  restless,  bitter 
unbelief  of  this  day  calls  for  personal  contact — 
for  the  life  and  the  hope  which  can  be  begotten  in 
the  hearts  of  the  embittered  and  despairing  by 
the  breeding  of  personal  interest  and  personal 
service — by  that  personal  presence  in  earth's 
desolate  field  which  shall  illuminate  the  truth 
that  the  served  and  the  servants  are  brothers, 
the  children  of  a  Father  who  is  in  heaven. 
The  second  requisition  issues  in  the  name 
of  the  lost  faith  which  is  humanity's  supremest 
need. 

A  third  requisition  here  issues  in  the  name 
of  the  spiritual  necessity  of  the  giving  life.  Upon 
every  side  of  us  hundreds  of  human  bodies  are 
suffering  from  the  lack  of  exercise.  So  hundreds 
of  souls  in  the  Christian  communion  are  suffering 
from  the  lack  of  that  personal  effort  which  is  the 
soul's  best  exercise.  They  hire  the  minister  ;  they 
hire  the  missionary  ;  they  hire  the  charity  agent ; 
they  send  a  substitute  for  the  Sunday-school,  and 
so  attempt  to  take  all  their  spiritual  exercise  by 
proxy.  The  result  of  this  is  seen  upon  every  side 
of  us,  in  an  uninterested  and  uninfluential  Chris- 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  1/ 

tian  profession.  How  comparatively  few  of  its 
members  retain  a  lively  concern  in  the  affairs 
and  the  work  of  the  church  !  How  few  of  them 
are  as  strong  in  faith  and  as  zealous  of  good 
works  and  as  well-informed  concerning  the  mis- 
sionary work  of  the  church  as  they  were  in  the 
first  years  of  their  Christian  life !  One  cause 
of  this  anaemia  and  lassitude,  it  cannot  be  doubted, 
is  to  be  found  in  their  attempt  to  take  their  spirit- 
ual exercise  through  the  minister,  through  the 
missionary,  through  the  agent,  and  through  the 
check  book.  This  proxy  method  empties  the 
heart  of  its  interest,  and  so  leaves  the  life  an 
easy  prey  for  capture  by  the  world.  Now,  per- 
sonal work  in  the  moral  field  would  prevent  all 
this.  It  would,  first  of  all,  widen  the  horizon 
of  the  individual  life,  so  ennobling  it.  It  is 
nothing  less  than  a  measureless  pity  that  a  wo- 
man who  has  been  in  discipleship  to  the  Son  of  God 
for  ten,  twenty,  forty  years  should  to-day  have 
nothing  to  talk  about  save  her  personal  ailments 
and  the  trouble  she  has  with  her  domestics.  It  is  a 
great  shame  that  a  man  who  for  one  or  two  score 
years  has  been  a  confessed  follower  of  Jesus  Christ 
— of  that  Christ  all  of  whose  thoughts  and  words 
were  world-wide — should  to-day  have  his  conver- 
sation and  his  interest  bounded  by  his  shop.    Per' 


i8  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

sonal  effort  in  the  service  of  human  need  will 
prevent  this  narrowing  and  shallowing — this  dwarf- 
ing of  the  human  life.  It  will  lead  the  individual 
up  into  an  exceeding  high  mountain,  from  which  he 
shall  see  that  which  is  the  only  truly  great  entity  of 
time,  and,  it  may  be,  of  the  created  universe,  the 
flashing  and  the  sweep  and  the  roar  of  the  great  sea 
of  humanity.  It  will  introduce  him  to  a  brother- 
hood in  the  presence  of  whose  pitiful  need  and 
tremendous  interests  the  little  ego  shall  cease 
from  its  tiny  self-consciousness.  It  will  widen  the 
horizon  of  daily  thought ;  inspire  with  nobler 
sympathies  ;  dignify  with  higher  purposes  ;  and 
so  insure  the  individual  development  of  the 
worthier  kind — prove  the  liberal  education  of  the 
spirit.  This  is  a  University  Extension  course 
within  the  reach  of  the  humblest  human  life. 
The  third  requisition  issues  in  the  name  of  in- 
dividual need. 

The  fourth  requisition  issues  in  the  name 
of  the  personal  God  and  of  the  personal  Jesus, 
God's  manifestation  in  human  form.  The  di- 
vine knowledge  of  all  the  creatures  of  His 
hand  is  individual.  When  the  Creator  looks 
over  the  heavens,  the  work  of  His  hands,  He 
does  not  say,  "  Behold  a  field  of  flying  worlds  "  ; 
rather  these  are  His  words :  "  Lift   up  your  eyes 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  19 

on  high,  and  behold  who  hath  created  these  things, 
that  bringeth  out  their  host  by  number:  he  calleth 
them  all  by  names  ...  for  that  He  is  strong 
in  power;  not  one  faileth."  And  not  other- 
wise is  it  in  the  field,  the  vast  field,  of  human 
life.  We  speak  of  classes  and  masses.  The  di- 
vine knowledge  makes  use  of  no  such  raw  and 
clumsy  phrases.  The  Infinite  Father  knows  the 
swarming  millions  of  humanity  as  His  individual 
children.  He  calls  them  by  their  name.  He 
numbers  the  hairs  of  their  heads.  He  has  a 
bottle  of  remembrance  for  each  one  of  their  tears. 
He  does  not  simply  say,  "  Behold  two  sparrows !" 
but  this  rather, — one  sparrow  that  shall  fly  and 
one  that  shall  fall.  God  manifest  in  the  flesh, 
behold  how  truly,  how  beautifully  personal  He 
was  in  all  His  relations  with  the  human  life — how 
He  talked  and  blessed  and  saved  by  personal  con- 
tact. The  poor  blind  beggar's  cry  even  He  will 
not  answer  by  proxy  or  indirection.  Not  to  any 
one  of  his  nearest  attendants  will  He  say,  **  Go 
and  see  what  it  is  that  that  beggar  wants."  Nay, 
but  He  stops ;  He  Himself  responds  to  the  pitiful 
cry ;  with  His  own  voice  He  asks,  "  What  wilt 
thou  ?"  Then  listen  to  Him  as  He  talks  with 
Peter.  How  well  He  knows  the  eccentric  dis- 
ciple!    How  personal  is  His  service  of  that  dis- 


20  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

ciple's  need !  Behold  Him  as  He  receives  the 
head  of  the  loving  John  upon  His  bosom.  How 
true,  how  tender,  His  personal  relations  with  this 
individual  man ! 

Now,  shall  any  one  essay  to  honor  or  to  con- 
tinue this  personal  ministration  of  the  Divine 
Lord  through  and  by  means  of  impersonal  ser- 
vice, by  the  staff  method  ?  Will  you  hire  a  sub- 
stitute and  send  this  substitute  to  take  your 
place  by  the  side  of  such  a  Leader  ?  Will  you 
send  a  check  as  your  only  response,  as  your 
recognition  of  this  example  of  personal  service 
and  personal  love  ?  Oh  !  if  you  do,  it  will  be  a 
shame  unto  you — a  shame  that  shall  one  day  flush 
your  cheek  with  an  intolerable  burning.  Oh,  yes  ! 
hire  a  substitute  for  the  day  when  the  life  of  your 
fatherland  hangs  in  the  balance  of  the  bloody 
battle ;  bid  a  servant  answer  the  letter  that  has 
come  from  your  lover;  send  a  check  unto  the 
sorrow  and  loneliness  of  your  mother;  but  do  not 
think  of  putting  off  the  Christ,  who  loved  you  and 
gave  Himself  for  you,  with  any  form  of  response 
that  does  not  include  your  loyal,  loving,  personal 
service. 

In  the  direction  of  this  personal  service  lies, 
believe  me,  your  finest  earthly  opportunity  ;  your 
superior  joy,  and  your  richest    reward.     Oh,  ye 


THE  STAFF  METHOD  21 

self-complacent  men  of  bank,  of  office,  and  of 
store ;  ye  children  also  of  ease,  of  fashion,  and  of 
wealth,  who  vainly  imagine  that  ye  are  dealing 
with  the  great  things  of  this  world,  while  ye  turn 
over  your  Christ  and  your  human  brother  to  the 
substitute  and  to  the  machine,  brush  the  scales 
from  your  eyes,  unlearn  your  delusion  before  the 
sun  of  your  earthly  opportunity  goes  down  in  the 
night  in  which  no  man  can  work  !  Oh,  ye  helpers, 
ye  teachers,  ye  missionaries,  ye  who  are  dealing 
with  souls,  and  sometimes  discouraged  with  a 
humility  that  disparages  your  work,  this  day  also 
do  ye  repent  of  your  unworthy  shame  and  take 
unto  your  hearts  the  assurance  that  the  mightiest 
issues  of  earth  are  those  which  ye  are  daily  hand- 
ling— that  the  highest  form  of  man's  earthly  life  is 
that  which  is  disclosed  in  the  personal  service  of 
the  needy  human  soul ! 

"  And  Gehazi  came  back  to  his  master,  saying, 
The  child  is  not  awaked.  Master,  the  child  is  not 
awaked." 

My  fellow-men,  the  dead  child  before  us  is  the 
heart's  lost  faith,  the  world's  lost  hope.  And  this 
machinery  cannot  give  back.  This  the  staff  in 
the  hand  of  a  servant  cannot  quicken.  This 
neither  the  written  check  nor  the  proxy  hand  can 
re-bestow.     This  lies  dead   until  life  is   breathed 


22  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

into  it  by  the  living  and  loving  spirit  of  the  serving 
brother  life. 

My  Christian  friend,  permit  me  to  give  you  a 
personal  introduction  to  your  human  brother  who 
has  need  of  you.  Send  him  not  your  proxy,  not 
the  agent,  not  the  check,  but  go  yourself  So  you 
will  fill  out  the  sweetest  and  the  noblest  obligation 
resting  upon  your  earthly  life.  The  love  of  your 
Father  who  is  in  heaven,  and  the  need  of  your 
fellow-man  who  is  on  the  earth — these  two, 
through  all  the  weary  centuries  of  time,  blend 
their  deepest  significance  and  their  truest  pathos 
in  the  words  of  this  one  voice  :  We  seek  not  yours ^ 
but  you. 


II 

THE   DIVINE-HUMAN   FACE 


II 

THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE 
"  The  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ." — 2  CoR.  iv  :  6. 

Glory  is  excellence  in  manifestation.  The 
glory  of  the  sun  is  in  his  out-streaming  rays. 
The  glory  of  nature  is  the  beauty  of  the  earth 
shown  in  mountain  and  valley,  in  lake  and  river, 
in  forest  and  prairie.  It  is  the  gold  of  the  flaming 
sunset ;  it  is  the  silver  gleam  of  the  glancing 
river ;  it  is  the  spotless  ermine  of  the  everlasting 
mountains. 

So  the  glory  of  God  is  the  divine  excellence 

streaming  forth  in  rays  of  moral  splendor.     The 

heavens    declare  the    glory  of  God ;  and  in    the 

text  it  is  declared  that  this  glory  shines  in  the  face 

of  Jesus  Christ.     Just  as  we  might  say  the  glory 

of  day  is  in  the  face  of  the  sun,  the  glory  of  night 

outrays    from    moon    and    star,    so  the   Apostle, 

enlightened  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  looks  upon  the 

face  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  cries :  *'  Behold  the 

25 


26  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

glory  of  God !  Behold  the  manifestation  of  the 
Divine  Excellence ! " 

The  face  of  a  man  differs  from  every  other  part 
of  the  body  in  its  superior  power  to  express  the 
life  which  is  within  the  man.  I  say  superior 
power,  for  every  portion  of  the  body  possesses 
this  attribute  in  a  greater  or  less  degree.  Put  the 
same  garment  successively  on  two  different  per- 
sons, and  you  will  get  widely  different  results. 
The  form,  the  carriage,  the  characteristics  of  the 
body  will  strike  through  this  covering.  Leanness 
and  fleshiness,  grace  and  awkwardness,  energy 
and  languor,  the  stooping  body  and  the  erect 
form,  will  be  clearly  seen  through  the  garments 
that  shape  themselves  to  the  form  which  they 
enrobe.  So  human  bodies  disclose  their  individ- 
uality despite  the  art  of  costumer  and  tailor. 

Now  going  a  little  deeper  into  these  concentric 
layers  that  we  call  a  human  life,  we  come  unto 
the  body  which  the  spirit  wears  for  its  vesture, 
even  as  the  body  wears  the  garments  of  which  we 
have  spoken ;  and  no  more  than  the  outer  does 
this  inner  conceal  the  life  which  it  covers. 

Look  at  the  Frenchman's  shoulders !  His 
inner  life  bubbles  up  through  them,  even  as  the 
life  of  the  boiling  kettle  bubbles  up  through  the 
palpitating  lid.     Then  there  are  the  foot,  the  wrist, 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  27 

the  neck,  the  contour  and  pose  of  the  head,  all  of 
them  voiceful  of  the  inner  life.  Naturalists  are 
able,  from  a  single  tibia,  to  construct  the  whole 
animal  frame.  Give  them  this  one  bone,  and, 
upon  it  and  round  it,  they  will  build  up  the  body 
to  which  it  belonged — to  which  it  must  have 
belonged.  So  might  the  anthropologist  well- 
nigh  construct  the  human  mammal  from  the  wrist 
bone  or  the  cervical  anatomy, — so  instinct  with 
individuality,  so  voiceful  of  the  inner  life,  is  every 
part  of  the  hum.an  body. 

But  none  of  them  is  so  much  so  as  the  face. 
When  you  would  surely  know  whether  a  man  is 
angry  you  do  not  look  upon  his  back,  or  his 
hands,  or  his  feet,  but  you  look  into  his  face. 
This  is  where  the  anger  flashes  out ;  this  is  the 
glass  that  is  discolored  by  the  vile  breath  of  the 
soul ;  this  is  the  shining  disk  over  which  moves 
the  dark  shadow  of  the  eclipse ;  this  is  the  limpid 
fountain  that  is  muddied  with  passion's  precipitate. 

So  also  with  joy.  This  too  leaps  from  the 
heart  into  the  face  illuminating  all  its  features. 
So  also  with  sorrow.  What  a  difference  there 
is  between  the  face  of  a  sad,  and  the  face  of  a 
joyous  spirit !  What  two  unlike  pictures  of  a 
soul  are  given  us  in  the  faces  of  a  crying  and  a 
laughing  child !     And  states  of  the  heart    more 


28  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

permanent  than  the  emotions  find  their  expres- 
sions also  in  the  face.  Anxiety  etches  itself  into 
the  features ;  purity  and  impurity,  benevolence  and 
scorn,  humility  and  pride,  peace  and  unrest  grow 
into  engraver's  lines  upon  its  surface.  So  the 
face  changes  with  the  changes  that  go  on  within 
— now  hardening,  now  softening,  now  laughing, 
now  crying  as  the  April  day.  If  only  we  had  the 
right  kind  of  a  microscope  we  might  read  in  the 
face  the  whole  history  of  the  life — spelling  out 
such  words  as  these :  success,  failure,  gentleness, 
scorn,  sorrow,  joy,  peace,  unrest,  hope,  fear — the 
very  life  of  the  soul.  Hence,  when  we  would 
begin  the  study  of  a  man,  if  we  have  the  oppor- 
tunity, we  always  turn  our  eyes  upon  his  face. 

So  let  us  at  this  time  study  the  face  that  Jesus 
Christ  turned  upon  this  world,  the  face  in  which 
shone  the  glory  of  God.  This  let  us  do  in  order 
that  we,  coming  to  know  what  is  the  true  glory 
of  rational  life,  may  be  changed  into  the  same 
image,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  or  if 
not  so  much  as  this,  yet  at  least  that  we  may  be 
made  ashamed  of  some  of  the  faces  that  we  have 
turned  upon  the  world,  and  which  now,  alas  for 
us,  are  hung  up  in  the  gallery  of  the  universe — in 
the  rogue's  gallery,  some  of  them. 

At  the  time  in  which  Jesus  lived,  the  publicans 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  29 

were  so  many  outcasts,  political  and  social.  In 
addition  to  being  tax-collectors,  they  were  the 
collectors  of  the  taxes  that  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment had  imposed.  So  they  were  doubly  odious 
— odious  because  they  were  always  raking  in  the 
money,  and  abominably  odious  because  they  col- 
lected this  money  for  a  foreign  and  a  hated  power; 
and  being  reckoned  a  degraded  class,  they 
became  degraded.  For  it  is  hard,  as  Robertson 
has  well  said,  for  any  man  to  live  above  the  moral 
standard  assigned  to  him  by  the  community. 
The  first  step  downward  is  to  sink  in  the  estima- 
tion of  others ;  the  next  and  fatal  step  is  to  sink 
in  one's  own  estimation.  The  value  of  reputation 
is,  that  it  pledges  a  man  to  be  what  he  is  taken 
for.  It  is  indeed  a  fearful  thing  for  a  man  to  have 
no  character  to  support — nothing  to  fall  back 
upon  in  the  hour  of  fierce  assault,  nothing  to  keep 
him  up  to  himself  in  the  day  when  the  deadly 
simoom  of  temptation  blows  across  his  life. 

Now  the  publicans  had  no  character.  They 
were  outcasts  from  Jewish  society,  looked  upon 
as  vile  and  degraded  by  the  community  in  which 
they  lived.  The  religious  classes,  especially  the 
Pharisees,  particularly  detested  and  avoided  them. 
Well,  one  day  after  Jesus  had  begun  His  walks 
among  men,  it  happened  that  His  path  led  Him 


30  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

in  the  direction  of  one  of  these  pubhcans  who 
was  sitting  at  the  receipt  of  custom,  engaged  in 
his  nefarious  work  of  raking  in  the  taxes. 

The  meeting  is  inevitable.  Jesus  and  the  pub- 
Hcan  must  see  each  other.  What  shall  be  the 
nature  of  this  congress,  what  the  result  ?  With 
what  glance  will  Jesus  regard,  what  face  will  He 
turn  upon  the  publican  ?  The  moment  is  a 
critical  one,  pent  with  an  influence  which  shall 
tell  upon  all  the  ages,  for  the  new  man,  the  Lord 
from  heaven,  is  walking  toward  the  barrier  set  up 
by  human  society.  What  shall  be  the  issue? 
Will  He  stop  before  reaching  it — cowardly  re- 
versing His  course?  Will  He  gently  and  deftly 
curve  His  pathway  round  it,  as  not  many  genera- 
tions ago  some  teachers  of  religion  were  accus- 
tomed to  get  round  the  slave  pen  and  the  human 
auction  block  ?  Or  will  He  break  through  it  ? 
The  moment  is  critical.  Humanity's  second 
Head,  the  new  man  from  heaven,  is  walking 
toward  the  human  life  which  this  world  has 
stamped  "  outcast."  Will  Jesus  dare  to  recognize 
this  life  ?  Will  He  deign  to  interest  Himself  in  it 
— to  hope  for  it?  With  your  own  eyes  and  ears 
get  the  answer  to  these  questions.  For  look ! 
Jesus  continues  straight  forward.  Now  He  is 
even  before  the  publican.     See  !  He   stops.     He 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  31 

turns  His  face  upon  the  publican.  He  speaks 
and  the  words  that  we  hear  are  these :  "  Come, 
follow  me " ;  and  that  same  night  Jesus  accepts 
an  invitation  to  dine  at  the  publican's  house. 

Such  was  the  meeting  of  the  new  Life  of  the 
new  world  with  the  outcast  life  of  the  old  world. 
Such  was  the  face  that  Jesus  turned  upon  the 
man  whom  both  society  and  the  church  had 
excommunicated.  It  was  a  face  of  sympathy 
and  hope,  of  sympathy  with  and  hope  for  a  pub- 
lican. 

Such  then,  my  fellow-men,  is  the  glory  of 
God.  What,  do  you  ask  ?  Interest  in  a  human 
life  though  the  world  treats  it  as  refuse.  To  see 
manhood  and  divinity  and  hope  in  an  outcast  of 
earth.  To  lift  up  into  companionship  with  Him- 
self a  social  pariah — this  is  the  glory  of  God, 
this  is  the  outraying  excellence  of  Deity,  this  is 
the  outstreaming  splendor  of  infinite  Being,  for 
this  is  that  which  shone  in  the  face  that  Jesus 
turned  that  day  upon  the  man  who  was  a 
publican. 

Take  another  incident — look  upon  another  of 
the  faces  which  Jesus  turned  upon  this  world. 
One  day,  during  the  press  of  His  public  duties, 
among  those  who  sought  the  presence  of  Jesus 
were    a   number  of  parents    who    brought   their 


32  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

children  with  them,  that  the  Saviour  might  place 
His  hands,  in  blessing,  upon  the  heads  of  the 
little  ones.  The  disciples  of  the  Lord,  imagining 
themselves  to  have  their  Master  in  charge,  and 
not  wilHng  that  His  time  should  be  taken  up  with 
such  petty  cares,  rebuked  the  solicitous  parents. 
*'  For  shame,"  they  cried,  "  do  you  not  see  that 
the  Master's  time  is  all  required  for  duties  of  the 
largest  and  most  important  character?  How 
then  can  you  be  so  thoughtless  as  thus  to  intrude 
upon  Him?  Would  you  have  Jesus  waste  His 
time  upon  children  ?" 

Jesus,  listening,  hears  these  words  of  His  dis- 
ciples, and  at  once  breaks  in  upon  them  with 
this  voice :  "  Suffer  the  little  children  to  come 
unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not."  Then  turning  to 
the  little  ones,  and  reaching  forth  His  arms  He 
cries,  "Come,"  and  as  they  run  unto  Him,  He 
takes  them  up  in  His  arms,  puts  His  hands  upon 
them  and  blesses  them. 

My  hearers,  the  picture  is  not  dim  unto  this 
day  nor  is  its  central  figure  indistinct.  Across  the 
field  of  nineteen  centuries,  see  it — Jesus  holding  a 
little  child  in  His  arms.  Some  of  us  have  known 
hours  when,  with  tear-filled  eyes,  we  could  see 
nothing  else  save  this  picture — the  Saviour  lifting 
up  the  little  one  from  our  arms  unto  His.    Again, 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  33 

to-day,  I  would  have  you  look  upon  it — for  it  is 
beautiful. 

Behold  that  face  which  Jesus  turns  upon  the 
child  within  His  arms !  See  you  the  light  that 
is  in  it?  That  is  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

Let  me  ask  you,  Who  is  your  God  ?  What  is 
He  ?  The  Being  whose  glory  fills  the  heavens 
above,  whose  majestic  splendor  is  reflected  from 
those  myriad  suns,  which  along  the  paths  of  the 
infinite  field  lead  forth  their  glorious  train  ?  Think 
you  of  Him  only  as  the  mighty  One,  who  upon 
that  far  distant  and  shadowy  throne  executes  the 
purpose  of  an  infinite  will — electing  unto  life,  re- 
probating unto  death,  stretching  out  over  im- 
mensity the  scepter  of  an  unchangeable  and 
omnipotent  decree  ?  The  glory  of  God  in  your 
eyes,  is  it  only  the  resplendent  shining  of  that 
august  and  sovereign  throne  ?  Or  a  thousandfold 
worse  is  this  phrase — the  glory  of  God — only  an 
empty  form  of  words,  with  which  you  have  been 
accustomed  to  round  out  the  sentence  in  the 
stereotyped  prayer  ?  Ah !  I  bid  you  see  this 
glory  made  real  before  your  eyes,  brought  near 
unto  human  vision,  made  plain  and  simple  unto 
human  intelligence.  The  light  in  Jesus'  face  as 
He  looks  upon  the  little  child  in  His  arms — that 

3 


34  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

is  the  glory  of  God,  and  neither  Orion  nor  the 
Pleiades  shows  forth  this  glory  better. 

Cast  your  eyes  over  the  world.  Wherever  you 
see  a  human  face  beaming  in  gentleness  and  love 
upon  a  little  child — there  is  the  glory  of  God 
before  your  very  eyes.  Wherever  you  see  a 
human  face  scowling  upon  the  child  life,  though 
this  face  belongs  to  one  who  has  been  years  here 
praying  that  he  might  live  to  the  glory  of  God,  be 
sure  that  this  prayer  has  been  of  words  only  and 
that  it  is  yet  unheard  in  the  realms  above. 

But  pass  to  another  incident,  to  look  upon 
another  face  which  Jesus  turned  upon  this  world 
in  which  we  live. 

A  certain  Pharisee  besought  the  Saviour  to 
dine  with  him,  and  Jesus  went  in  and  sat  down  to 
meat.  And  when  the  Pharisee  saw  it  he  mar- 
veled that  Jesus  had  not  first  washed  before 
dinner.  And  this  was  the  face  that  Jesus  turned 
upon  him  :  '*  Woe  unto  you,  Pharisees  !  for  ye 
tithe  mint  and  rue  and  all  manner  of  herbs,  and 
pass  over  judgment  and  the  love  of  God."  "  Woe 
unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  !  for  ye 
make  clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  of  the 
platter,  but  within  they  are  full  of  extortion  and 
excess.  .  .  .  Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of  vipers, 
how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell  ?  " 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  35 

Such  was  the  terrible  face  that  Jesus  turned 
upon  Phariseeism ;  and  this  is  still  before  the 
world  and  for  our  observation  and  study  to-day. 

The  best  that  can  be  said  of  the  God  who  is  set 
forth  by  many  religious  teachers  of  our  day  is 
that  He  is  a  goodish  old  Father  who  loves  all  the 
children  of  men.  He  would,  it  is  true,  prefer  that 
these  children  should  obey  Him ;  but,  if  not,  He 
will  make  all  necessary  allowances,  putting  up 
with  whatever  of  recognition  and  loyalty  they  are 
willing  to  bestow  upon  Him.  Now,  concerning 
this  sentimental  Deity,  this  must  be  said  first  of 
all.  He  is  despicable  even  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  have  made  Him.  The  Jove  of  the  mythical 
world  was  the  thunderer;  his  hands  were  filled 
with  flaming  bolts.  He  stood  for  strength,  for 
power,  for  grandeur  of  being.  His  name  was 
coherence  for  his  mighty  realm,  and  the  roll  of 
his  chariot  wheels  was  the  glory  of  his  kingdom. 
Mythology  at  least  made  its  god  respectable  in 
the  eyes  of  his  subjects.  But  the  dilettantism  of 
some  modern  pulpits  paints  the  great  Jehovah  as 
an  enthroned  emotion,  a  doting  old  Father,  a 
King — if  He  can  be  called  a  King — who  if  placed 
upon  an  earthly  throne  would  nauseate  His  realm 
and  vex  it  with  innumerable  ills. 

I  tell  you,  my  fellow-men,  this  old  and  wicked 


36  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

world,  these  vast  cities  upon  its  surface,  raging 
with  iniquity  and  as  impure  as  hell,  demand  a  God 
of  justice  and  of  strength,  an  actual  ruler  to  sit 
upon  the  throne  of  the  heavens.  Every  virtuous 
mind,  too,  craves  such  a  God.  Judgment  and 
justice,  let  these  be  the  habitation  of  His  throne ; 
terrible  things  in  righteousness,  let  these  be  the 
thunders  of  His  mighty  realm.  So  prays  every 
pure  and  noble  spirit. 

Again,  it  must  be  said  of  this  God  of  the 
modern  amenities  that  He  is  not  the  One  whose 
glory  shines  in  the  face  upon  which  we  have  just 
looked.  "  Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of  vipers, 
how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell  ?  "  It  is 
the  glory  of  the  true  God,  that  when  there  is  need 
He  can  shoot  such  thunderbolts  as  these.  Against 
Phariseeism  and  hypocrisy,  and  all  falsehood,  all 
sham  and  cant,  and  lying  formality,  the  glory  of 
God  (oh !  let  the  earth  give  thanks)  shows  as  a 
consuming  fire.  This  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  I 
beseech  you,  look  well  upon  it.  Its  indignation 
leaps  forth  as  the  lightning  from  the  livid  cloud ! 
Its  words  are  the  thunders  of  eternal  righteous- 
ness, reverberating  over  the  head  of  defiant  and 
shameless  sin !  All  this  that  you  see  and  feel 
— all   this   splendor  of  terribleness — is  the  glory 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  37 

of  God  raying  forth  upon  the  world,  the  glory 
of  God  focused  in  a  human  face. 

Yet  once  again  I  would  have  you  look 
upon  the  face  of  Jesus  as  it  is  turned  upon  our 
world.  A  poor  guilty  woman — guilty  as  only 
woman  can  be — lies  crouching  in  the  dust  at  the 
Saviour's  feet.  Friend  she  has  none ;  hope  she 
has  none.  The  angry  crowd  surges  up  to  the 
prostrate  form,  panting,  ravenous  for  blood.  Jesus 
is  silent.  We  cannot  even  see  His  face  this 
moment,  for  it  is  bent  upon  the  ground  upon 
which  He  is  writing  with  His  finger.  It  is  the  face 
of  the  new  man,  the  Lord  from  heaven — what  is  in 
it  ?  It  is  a  face  which  shall  never  fade  from  earth's 
vision — what  is  in  it?  It  is  the  face  in  which 
shines  the  glory  of  God — what  shall  we  see  in  it 
when  it  is  raised?  Indifference?  Disgust?  Con- 
tempt? Anger?  Wait  a  moment !  There  now, 
Jesus  moves ;  He  lifts  his  head.  Oh,  see  that 
face !  How  different  from  any  face  in  the  im- 
patient and  ravening  crowd  !  How  different  from 
any  face  which  the  world  had  ever  seen  before ! 
What  tenderness  is  in  it !  What  love !  What 
serene  calmness !  What  courage  for  pity  and  for- 
giveness !  Then,  while  we  look,  this  face  melts 
into  speech,  and  these  are  its  words,  "  Neither  do 
I  condemn  thee :  go,  and    sin    no    more."     This 


38  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

the  glory  of  God  ?  Why,  then,  those  holy 
Pharisees  had  not  known  God !  This  the  glory 
of  God  ?  Why,  then,  there  are  self-styled  wor- 
shipers of  God  upon  every  side  of  us  who  do 
not  know  Him.  This  the  glory  of  God  ?  Then 
what  must  be  said  of  many  circles  of  earth's  good 
society  ?  Why,  that  their  glory  is  the  glory,  not 
of  God,  but  of  devils  ! 

But  look  once  more,  and  upon  another  face 
which  Jesus  turned  upon  our  world.  For  long 
hours  now  He  has  been  exposed  to  taunt  and 
ridicule.  He  has  been  buffeted,  smitten  in  the 
face,  spit  upon,  and  crowned  in  mockery  with 
thorns.  And  now  the  culmination  has  come. 
Wicked  hands  have  lifted  Him  to  the  Cross  and 
nailed  Him  there,  and,  their  horrid  task  accom- 
plished. His  executioners  now  sit  down  at  the  foot 
of  the  Cross  to  divide  His  raiment  among  them. 
It  is  at  this  juncture  that  Jesus  turns  His  eyes 
upon  them.  Behold  this  face,  and  scan  it  well ! 
for  here  again  you  shall  behold  the  glory  of  God. 
Remember,  it  is  a  face  which  out  of  its  own  mortal 
agony  looks  down  upon  His  executioners.  What 
is  in  the  face  ?  Revenge  ?  Wrath  ?  Flaming 
indignation?  Let  it  speak  its  own  meaning; 
"  Father,  forgive  them ;  for  they  know  not  what 
tliey  do." 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  39 

The  mad  tragedy  reels  onward.  Jesus  has  now 
been  for  hours  upon  the  Cross.  The  derisive 
shout  no  longer  falls  upon  His  ears.  The  angry- 
crowd  is  tired,  satiated.  Jesus  is  dying;  Jesus  is 
dying.  But,  as  we  stand  waiting  for  the  end,  a 
piteous  entreaty  falls  upon  our  ears.  It  comes 
not  from  the  throng  before  the  Cross,  but  from 
one  of  the  three  crosses.  It  is  from  a  dying  thief, 
who  but  a  short  time  since  had  joined  in  the  gen- 
eral reviling.  Listen  to  his  pitiful  words  :  "  Lord, 
remember  me  when  Thou  comest  into  Thy  king- 
dom." Jesus  turns  His  eyes,  rays  of  the  divine 
glory  stream  through  His  face  and  fall  upon  the 
dying  malefactor  in  this  response :  "  To  day  shalt 
thou  be  with  Me  in  Paradise." 

What  is  the  lesson  from  it  all  ?  Interest  in  man 
as  man  apart  from  and  independent  of  all  external 
circumstances — this  is  the  glory  of  God.  Interest 
in  and  love  for  little  children — this  is  the  glory  of 
God.  Burning  wrath  flaming  out  against  all 
hypocrisy — this  is  the  glory  of  God.  Pity  and 
forgiveness  for  the  vilest  outcast  who  will  go  and 
sin  no  more — this  is  the  glory  of  God.  Mercy 
and  pardon  ready  to  flow  unto  a  dying  criminal — 
this  is  the  glory  of  God.  Look  well,  I  pray  you, 
upon  the  faces ;  live  with  them  looking  down 
upon  you — read   the  glory  and  learn  your   God. 


40  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

Only  two  or  three  brief  inferences  : — 
First,  the  glory  of  God  as  it  shines  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  excellence  that  approves  itself 
unto  the  human  consciousness  and  which  lies  in 
the  path  of  human  development.  We  are  made 
in  the  divine  image,  and  there  is  not  a  face  that 
Jesus  turned  upon  the  world  but  we  can  easily 
conceive  of  as  belonging  to  a  perfect  man.  Oh, 
yes,  it  is  true !  He  is  the  model  man.  He  is  the 
perfect  man,  He  is  the  divine  man,  and  He  leads 
in  the  direction  of  all  true  and  beautiful  develop- 
ment. Type  and  prophecy  is  He  of  the  new  race 
which,  in  the  regeneration,  shall  enter  into  ever- 
lasting possession  of  the  new  earth.  Aye !  the 
day  Cometh — in  God's  Book  it  is  written — when 
every  human  face  in  the  beautiful  second  order 
shall  shine  with  the  glory  that  beamed  from  the 
face  of  earth's  Redeemer. 

Second,  the  glory  of  God  which  many  a 
theological  system  and  many  a  religious  confes- 
sion exalts  is  only  a  caricature  of  the  true  gloiy. 
Men  have  shut  themselves  up  in  monastic  cells 
for  the  glory  of  God.  They  have  endured  bodily 
torture  ;  they  have  drunk  the  blood  of  heretics  ; 
they  have  reprobated  earth's  great  majority,  and 
they  themselves  have  professed  a  willingness  to 
be  damned — and  all  for  the  glory  of  God !     And 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  41 

now  ?  Why  proud  faces,  selfish  and  hard  faces, 
faces  which  are  frowns  at  home  and  flints  in  the 
world ;  men  who  place  money  above  conscience, 
and  women  who  would  rather  be  society's  elect 
than  heaven's — these  all  profess  communion  with 
the  Christ,  and  imagine  they  are  showing  forth 
the  glory  of  God ! 

Again,  that  shining  face  that  we  have  looked 
upon  to-day  is  the  goal  which  the  Christian  ought 
to  keep  continually  in  view.  By  it  he  should  test 
his  hope,  and  by  it  he  should  measure  his  prog- 
ress. We  deal  too  much  in  abstractions.  We 
talk  too  much  of  a  plan  of  salvation.  We  lay 
too  much  stress  upon  one  particular  heart  emo- 
tion or  mental  activity  that  we  denominate  faith, 
and  which  on  the  principle  of  a  quid  pro  quo  is 
in  some  mysterious  way  to  avail  for  our  future 
welfare.  Some  Christians  lift  Jesus  up  out  of 
His  own  gospel— leaving,  only  a  "plan  of  salva- 
tion" behind.  Some  Christians  lift  up  character 
out  of  religion,  leaving  only  churchmanship  in  its 
place.  My  fellow-men,  I  warn  you  back  this  day 
to  the  concrete.  The  only  plan  of  salvation  is  the 
loving,  living  Saviour,  who  is  Jesus  the  Christ ; 
and  the  only  evidence  that  we  have  part  or  lot 
in  His  salvation  is  found  in  our  growing  likeness 
to  Him. 


4i  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

Therefore,  I  say,  keep  the  face  of  Jesus  daily 
and  distinctly  before  you.  Let  it  be  the  ever- 
shining  goal  of  your  hope  and  your  endeavor. 
But  see  to  it  that  it  is  the  face  of  the  Jesus  of  the 
Bible.  Theology  has  pictured  this  face,  but  you 
do  not  want  her  engraving  —  cold  and  hard. 
Sentimentality  has  painted  the  face,  but  you  do 
not  want  her  daub.  What  you  need  as  your 
inspiration,  as  your  beacon  light,  as  your  shining 
goal,  is  the  original  of  the  Bible  gallery — the  face 
which  was  turned  in  sympathy  and  hope  upon  the 
outcast  publican  ;  which  beamed  with  lov^e  upon 
little  children  ;  which  beat  down  in  blazing  wrath 
upon  Phariseeism ;  which  looked  love  and  spoke 
forgiveness  unto  the  dying  thief — the  original 
face — this  hang  up  before  your  life  for  its  daily 
rebuke  and  measureless  inspiration. 

But  say  you,  "  My  heart  is  without  admiration 
for  that  face  !  "  Then  woe  are  you  in  the  universe 
of  God,  for  that  face  stands  for  divine  beauty,  is 
the  outraying  of  that  character  which  alone  is 
blessed  while  eternity  lasts.  But  say  you  :  "  It  is 
so  far  above  me,  I  can  never  reach  unto  it ;  the 
hard  lines  of  my  face  I  can  never  smooth  and 
round  into  those  beautiful  features."  Ah  !  I  know 
it.  But  a  power  is  at  hand  to  supplement  your 
weakness — the   power  of   a   divine    regeneration. 


THE  DIVINE-HUMAN  FACE  43 

"  For  we  all,  with  unveiled  face,  beholding  as  in  a 
mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  transformed 
into  the  same  image,  from  glory  to  glory,  even 
as  from  the  Lord  the  Spirit." 

Let  us  then  study  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ, 
finding  the  correction  of  our  errors  of  head,  find- 
ing also  all  needed  inspiration  for  the  heart,  in  the 
daily  and  diligent  contemplation  of  that  human 
face  in  which  shines  the  true  glory  of  rational 
being — through  which  God  looks  out  upon  us 
and  upon  our  world. 

Now,  I  beg  you,  wait  just  a  moment.  Before 
you  go  I  desire  to  hang  up  these  several  faces 
of  Jesus  in  the  room  of  your  soul.  The  face 
looking  upon  the  degraded  and  outcast  publican 
I  will  hang  yonder  in  the  vestibule  at  the  very 
entrance.  The  face  of  Jesus  looking  upon  the 
little  child  which  He  holds  in  His  arms  I  will 
hang  there  above  the  mantel.  The  face  of  Jesus 
turned  upon  Phariseeism  I  will  hang  opposite  the 
window  yonder,  in  the  strongest  light  of  all.  The 
face  of  Jesus  looking  upon  the  woman  who  was 
a  sinner  shall  go  in  yonder  quiet  niche,  that  the 
one  who  desires  to  study  it  may  turn  aside  and 
be  alone.  The  face  that  Jesus  from  the  cross 
turned  upon  His  executioners — this  would  better 


44  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

rest   upon   the   easel,  inviting   daily  and   closest 
examination. 

Now  there  is  but  one  face  left — the  face  with 
which  Jesus  answered  the  prayer  of  the  dying 
criminal.  Carry  this,  I  pray  you,  in  miniature 
locket  over  your  heart,  for  it  is  in  strongest  focus, 
not  only  the  glory,  but  the  glory  of  the  glory  of 
that  God  whose  name  is  Love,  and  whose  love  is 
the  beautiful  Hope  of  your  soul. 


Ill 

THE   SKEPTICISM    OF   PROMINENT 
PEOPLE 


Ill 

THE   SKEPTICISM   OF   PROMINENT   PEOPLE 

"  Whosoever  shall  not  receive  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little 
child  shall  in  no  wise  enter  therein." — Luke  xviii :  17. 

Yet  I  think  we  are  in  danger  of  laying  es- 
pecial emphasis  upon  their  relation  to  religion, 
of  a  mind  and  spirit  in  character  the  opposite,  and 
in  position  the  antipodes  of  the  child  mind  and 
the  child  spirit.  I  refer  to  the  importance  which 
is  so  generally  attributed  to  the  unbelief  or  skep- 
ticism of  persons  prominent  in  the  world,  promi- 
nent in  letters,  or  science,  or  business,  or  society, 
or  politics.  Now  far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  the 
believing  soul  can  remain  altogether  insensible 
to  the  assaulting  force  of  skepticism.  I  will  not 
even  deny  that  there  is  much  truth  in  honest 
doubt,  or  that  from  this  doubt  there  has  not 
broken  forth  much  light  for  the  service  of  the 
world.  All  that  I  desire  at  this  time  to  say  unto 
you,  at  the  bidding  of  the  text  and  for  the  reas- 
surance and  comfort  of  your  faith,  is  this :  We 
are  in  danger  of  attaching  too  much  importance 

47 


48  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

unto,  and  of  laying  too  strong  an  emphasis  upon, 
the  unbehef  and  irreHgion  of  the  world's  promi- 
nent people. 

I.  Consider,  first,  that  large  knowledge  in  one 
direction  often  exists  with  notorious  ignorance 
upon  other  subjects  and  along  other  lines  of 
thought.  Yonder  university  has  subdivided  the 
field  of  human  knowledge  into  many  sections, 
assigning  a  specialist  to  each.  Generally  speak- 
ing, in  his  own  particular  branch  too,  the  pro- 
fessor is  somewhat  of  an  authority.  He  is  not 
much,  however,  outside  his  own  specialty.  On  a 
question  of  Christian  casuistry  the  opinion  of  the 
mathematician  has  no  especial  value.  This  is  be- 
cause he  has  not  given  attention  to  such  matters ; 
because  he  is  not  learned  in  this  direction.  On  a 
vexed  question  in  the  field  of  biology  the  astron- 
omer, however  eminent,  would  not  be  taken  as 
authority.  This  is  because  he  has  not  made  bi- 
ology a  study,  because  he  has  given  little  or  no 
attention  to  its  mighty  theories. 

Humbler  illustrations  of  this  principle  lie  all 
about  us.  There,  side  by  side,  are  the  offices 
of  lawyer  and  doctor.  Both  of  these  are  now 
called  to  the  bedside  of  the  dying  man — the  one 
to  make  his  will,  the  other  to  prescribe  for  his 
suffering   body.     Suppose,   now,   that   these   two 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        49 

men,  through  some  mistake,  were  made  to  change 
places — the  doctor  being  called  on  to  construct  the 
legal  paper  and  the  lawyer  to  write  out  the  Latin 
prescription.  Do  you  not  see  how  ignorant  and 
how  helpless  the  men  would  be,  and  this  no 
matter  how  proficient  each  of  them  may  be  in  his 
own  calling  ?  This  is  because  the  men  are  out  of 
their  spheres.  The  doctor  can  easily  and  confi- 
dently guide  unto  the  condition  where  wills  must 
be  made.  That  is  his  business.  The  lawyer  can 
take  the  man  from  the  hand  of  the  physician  (not 
his  affair  to  know  how  he  came  there)  and  iron- 
clad his  pleasure  concerning  the  estate  which  he 
is  to  leave  behind  him. 

So  it  is  through  all  the  industrial  and  professional 
callings.  Human  strength  is  weakness ;  human 
skill  is  ignorance  outside  of  the  narrow  range  of 
a  very  small  circle. 

In  a  wider  view,  the  same  truth  appears.  Phi- 
dias was  a  wonderful  sculptor.  He  could  make 
marble  speak,  but  he  himself  could  never  have 
spoken  the  Oration  on  the  Crown.  It  required 
a  Demosthenes  to  do  this.  Raphael  is  a  master 
for  all  time  in  painting,  but  Raphael  could  not 
sing  what  Dante  sang.  Mozart  and  Mendels- 
sohn— we  bow  to  them  in  music,  but  we  accept 
not  their  dicta  in  political  economy,  or  archi- 
4 


50  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

lecture,  or  law.  In  these  matters  the  opinions 
of  Adam  Smith,  and  Christopher  Wren,  and 
Blackstone  are  a  thousandfold  more  valuable. 

This  principle  brought  thus  clearly  into  view 
is  sadly  transgressed  when  men  of  literature, 
or  science,  or  public  life  open  their  mouths  to 
speak  upon  the  laws  and  verities  of  the  spiritual 
kingdom.  Learned  in  other  directions,  they  may 
be,  and  often  are,  but  as  often  are  they  ignorant 
of  religion  and  of  all  that  pertains  to  it,  and  their 
criticisms  and  conclusions  are  of  no  particular 
value. 

Suppose  that  the  professor  has  literally  and  for 
all  his  life  peered  through  the  microscope;  that 
he  is  an  authority,  and  the  highest  one,  in  this 
important  subdivision  of  the  kingdom  of  knowl- 
edge. But  what  qualification  is  this  for  a  critic 
or  a  prophet  in  the  spiritual  realm  ?  None  what- 
ever. The  famous  microscopist  makes  a  fool  of 
himself  if  he  opens  his  mouth  authoritatively  on 
spiritual  matters.  The  spirit,  whether  divine  or 
human,  the  Christ,  the  spores  of  moral  evil,  the 
movements  of  the  conscience  and  the  will — these 
never  come  into  view  under  the  eye  of  the  micro- 
scope, however  much  its  power  may  be  magnified. 
The  same  may  be  said  with  reference  to  all 
these   attainments   of  the   human    mind  that  go 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        51 

under  the  name  of  scientific.  Spirit  cannot  be 
resolved,  cannot  be  analyzed  in  the  crucible  of 
the  chemist.  The  human  soul  cannot  be  placed 
in  a  glass  jar  and  its  operations  watched,  as  the 
cocoon  is  scrutinized  and  the  law  of  the  butterfly 
laid  down.  The  laws  of  moral  influence  and 
moral  inspiration  cannot  be  figured  out  and 
formulated  as  are  the  orbits  of  the  planets.  So 
it  is  very  possible  for  a  man  to  be  learned  in  the 
movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  yet  blind 
to  the  radiant  footsteps  of  their  Creator.  A  pro- 
fessor may  know  much  of  light  and  heat  and 
motion,  and  yet  be  utterly  ignorant  of  the  laws  of 
spiritual  influence.  A  man  may  be  able  to  con- 
struct a  profound  essay,  to  sing  a  beautiful  poem ; 
but  these,  his  power  and  performance,  qualify  him 
not  at  all  to  speak  with  any  especial  significance 
upon  the  subjects  of  inspiration  and  prayer  and 
faith.  We  do  learning  or  culture  entirely  too 
much  honor  when  we  grant  to  them  any  especial 
authority  within  the  spiritual  realm.  The  simple 
truth  is  this :  it  matters  little  what  a  mathema- 
tician, or  a  chemist,  or  a  biologist,  or  a  littcrateiir, 
as  such,  may  think  or  may  say  of  God  and  of 
Christ,  of  sin  and  of  immortality.  To  use  a 
homely  phrase — these  things  are  not  in  their  line. 
To  them  they  have  given  no  especial  attention, 


52  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

and  upon  them  they  have  no  right  to  speak  dic- 
tatorially. 

With  a  question  of  health  I  will  not  go  to  the 
lawyer;  with  a  question  of  conscience  I  will  not 
go  to  the  politician ;  with  a  question  of  taste  I 
will  not  go  to  the  rich  parvenu  ;  and  with  a  ques- 
tion about  God,  or  Christ,  or  my  soul,  I  will  not  go 
to  the  man  who  is  color-blind  to  the  light  which 
shines  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  who  has 
never  lifted  a  prayer  to  the  God  of  heaven.  Wise 
he  may  be  in  some  things,  learned  along  certain 
lines  where  I  am  ignorant,  but  ignorant  also  is  he 
upon  larger  and  grander  subjects,  concerning 
which  I  am  sure  that  I  know  something. 

11.  But  again  and  in  this  same  connection  I 
consider  a  second  general  fact,  viz.,  that  the  con- 
stituent entities  of  religion  lie  quite  outside  the 
sphere  of  human  discovery  and  so  cannot  be 
reached  by  the  process  of  human  reason. 

The  truth  here  I  can  lift  up  before  you  in  the 
form  of  a  picture.  No  doubt  the  astronomer, 
through  the  telescope  of  yonder  observatory,  can 
see  farther  into  the  heavens  than  can  you  with 
the  unassisted  eye.  But  suppose  the  problem  is 
to  discover  and  tabulate  the  flora  of  Sirius.  Now 
which  is  better,  your  eye  or  the  astronomer's  lens  ? 
Why,  both  are  equally  worthless.     You  must  ex- 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE         53 

claim,  "  My  eyes  cannot  reach  unto  such  objects 
through  such  a  distance."  And  the  astronomer 
must  reply,  "  The  telescope  was  not  made  to  dis- 
cover lichens  upon  the  surface  of  a  world  so  far 
removed."  But  even  this  is  not  a  sufficiently 
strong  representation  of  the  case.  Imagination 
can  conceive  of  a  telescope  of  such  wondrous 
power  as  even  to  fasten  upon  these  humble 
growths  upon  the  rocks  of  the  distant  star.  But 
deity,  but  spirit,  but  heaven — all  the  objects  of  the 
spiritual  world — are  not  so  related  to  the  possibil- 
ity of  vision.  Let  therefore  the  illustration  be 
changed.  Be  the  problem  to  discover  a  spirit 
upon  the  far  distant  shores  of  the  mighty  sun. 
Now  let  the  astronomer  raise  his  telescope  to  the 
skies,  and  you,  your  unhelped  eyes.  Can  he  see 
farther  than  you  ?  But  what  of  this  ?  Farther  ! 
what  does  this  signify  when  infinity  still  lies  be- 
yond ?  Farther !  what  an  idle  world  when  the 
invisible  is  to  be  discovered ! 

Do  you  not  see  that  as  to  the  end  proposed 
you  and  the  astronomer  are  on  a  level  ?  And  let 
human  learning  stand  for  the  telescope,  and  our 
illustration  is  transposed  into  the  key  of  the  text. 
In  many  directions  it  is  granted  that  the  great 
man  will  see  farther  than  you.  Into  matter  and 
its  laws,  into  heat  and  light  and  motion,  into  the 


54  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

strata  that  make  up  the  crust  of  the  earth,  into 
the  fauna  and  flora  that  are  distributed  upon  its 
surface — in  all  these  directions  the  vision  of  the 
learned  man  will  outstrip  yours.  But  let  the 
problem  be  the  discovery,  the  vision  of  God,  of 
spirit,  of  the  post-mortem  state,  and  what  shall 
the  philosopher  do  above  and  beyond  you  ?  Is 
he  not,  with  all  his  learning,  on  a  level  with  you 
and  your  ignorance  ?  Most  surely  he  is.  And 
there  is  ever  so  good  an  explanation  of  his  limi- 
tation. Learning  counts  for  nothing,  science 
counts  for  nothing  here,  because  their  methods 
and  processes  cannot  be  transferred  to  the  spir- 
itual realm.  Induction  is  an  absurdity  where 
observation  is  an  impossibility.  And  this  is  the 
case  in  the  moral  world.  "  God  is  the  one  whom 
no  man  hath  seen  nor  can  see."  Why,  then,  shall 
we  allow  ourselves  to  be  troubled  by  the  skep- 
ticism of  human  learning?  It  has  seen  noth- 
ing of  God  which  we  have  not  seen.  Nay,  more. 
It  cannot  come  unto  the  sight  of  anything  in  the 
spiritual  realm,  the  vision  of  which  is  forbidden 
to  us. 

All  the  things  which  are  sought  here  are  known 
only  as  they  are  revealed  to  the  spirit  of  a  man. 
And  have  we  not  spirits  ?  Can  we  not  go  unto 
the  Great  Spirit  ?    Must  we  forsooth  have  mastered 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        55 

a  few  theories  as  to  the  origin  and  laws  of  matter  ? 
Must  we  know  a  few  facts  about  Hght  and  heat 
and  electricity  in  order  that  we  may  be  favorably 
introduced  to  the  Father  of  our  souls,  in  order 
that  we  may  be  qualified  to  receive  spiritual  im- 
pressions, to  respond  to  the  great  influence  of  the 
moral  world  ? 

The  supposition  is  absurd.  As  well  say  that 
we  must  know  Greek,  or  have  made  a  million  of 
dollars,  before  God  will  hear  us,  or  before  we  can 
read  His  word.  I  tell  you,  my  fellow-Christians, 
the  truth  is  self-evident.  With  reference  to  the 
knowledge  that  buttresses  the  religious  life,  we 
are  on  a  level  with  the  most  prominent  and  the 
most  cultured.  Revelation  is  an  absolute  neces- 
sity to  us  both.  Without  this  the  greatest  man 
is  left  in  ignorance,  and  with  it  we  know  easily 
as  much  as  he. 

III.  But  still  farther,  and  in  the  same  direction, 
I  must  ask  you  to  consider  that  the  habits  of 
intellectual  culture  often  have  a  strong  tendency 
to  disqualify  for  the  attainment  of  spiritual 
knowledge. 

Every  department  of  human  knowledge  has  its 
own  proper  and  necessary  condition.  In  the 
sphere  of  the  artist  this  condition  is  the  love  of 
the  beautiful,  the  inborn  sense  and  faculty  of  taste. 


e6  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

A  mathematician  might  gaze  on  the  landscape  as 
long  and  as  faithfully  as  the  artist,  but  he  would 
not  see  its  beauty.  This  would  be  hidden  from 
him,  because  he  has  not  conformed  to  the  condi- 
tion upon  which  this  beauty  is  revealed.  This 
law  runs,  too,  through  all  the  knowledges.  The 
poet  can  never  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  the 
fixed  sciences.  He  is  disqualified  by  his  mental 
habits  and  by  the  very  nature  of  his  being.  The 
empirical  student  can  see  no  beauty  in  the  sweetly 
singing  lines  of  poetry.  He  would  need  to  be 
reborn  in  order  to  hear  and  feel  this  melody. 

Now  in  keeping  with  this  general  law  and  under 
its  sway  is  the  spiritual  kingdom.  The  reception 
of  its  truth  also  calls  for,  demands,  a  certain  pre- 
requisite in  the  life  of  the  learner.  This  is  laid 
down  by  the  highest  authority  in  such  words  as 
these  : — 

"  The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear 
Him." 

"To  this  man  will  I  look,  even  to  him  that 
is  of  a  poor  and  of  a  contrite  spirit." 

"  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of 
the  doctrine." 

"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall 
see  God." 

We  see  thus  what  is  the  condition  that  obtains 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        57 

and  governs  in  the  sphere  of  religious  truth.     It 
is,  as  we  would  expect  to  find  it — a  moral  one. 
The   dictum  is :     Bring  to  the   study  of  spiritual 
things  a  pure  heart  and  an  obedient  life,  and  you 
shall  have  eood  success.     But  this  condition  the 
man  of  science  often  neglects,  ignores.     He  will 
take  into  the  spiritual  realm  the  methods  and  proc- 
esses of  science.     Instead  of   a  pure  and  loving 
heart,  he  brings  the  faculty  of  trained  observation ; 
instead  of  the  obedient  life,  he  comes  for  the  con- 
quest armed  with   a  keen  and  vigorous  intellect. 
All  knowledge  he  cries  is  induction  from  obser- 
vation.    Let  me  see,  let  me  reason,  let  me  dem- 
onstrate;  and  with  this   contemptuous    disregard 
of  spiritual  method  he  goes  to  work.     He,  for- 
sooth, will  discover  immortality  in  the   structure 
of  the  body — in  the  seat  of  a  gland,  in  the  con- 
volution of  a  nerve,   in  the  arrangement  of  the 
bioplastic  atoms. 

Of  course,  his  end  is  failure.  God  is  not  so 
found;  nor  spirit,  nor  immortality  so  demonstrated. 
But  most  justly,  the  failure  here,  and  any  un- 
belief arising  from  it,  may  be  set  down  as  the 
result  of  an  unauthorized  and  a  vicious  method. 
The  man  has  stalked  rudely  and  coarsely  into  the 
spiritual  world,  as  rudely  and  coarsely  as  if  with 
blare  of  trumpet,  and  helmeted  head,  and  leveled 


58  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

spear  he  should  break  into  nature's  beautiful 
works,  to  conquer  landscape  effects — so  to  woo 
the  goddess  of  beauty ! 

Professing  himself  to  be  wise  he  has  become 
a  fool.  So  it  was  in  Corinth  and  at  Athens  of 
old.  Paul's  preaching  was  to  them  foolishness, 
because  it  could  not  be  run  into  the  syllogism  or 
into  the  philosophy  of  the  schools.  But  their 
boasted  wisdom  is  cast-off  rubbish  to-day,  while 
Paul's  foolishness  seems  good  for  generations  yet 
to  come. 

But  without  further  dwelling  upon  this  point,  let 
me  stop  to  ask,  "  When  is  the  necessity  of  attach- 
ing any  especial  emphasis  to  the  unbelief  of  human 
learning?"  It  does  not  adhere  to  the  spiritual 
method.  The  fundamental  condition  of  spiritual 
certitude  it  ignores.  Much  learning  has  brought 
upon  it,  if  not  madness,  yet  a  manner  quite  repel- 
lent to  all  spiritual  verity.  Be  so  wise  then  as 
to  save  your  fear  for  another  and  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent case. 

Wait  till  there  comes  to  you  a  pure  and  rever- 
ent spirit — I  care  not  how  humble  or  unlearned — 
that  can  say,  "  I  have  loved,  I  have  obeyed,  I 
have  prayed,  I  have  laid  my  heart  open  in  the 
simplicity  of  a  little  child — and  still   your  God, 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        59 

your  Christ,  your  immortal  hope  are  as  myths  and 
fables  to  my  soul." 

Before  such  a  case  as  this,  when  it  shall  appear, 
let  your  faith  fear  and  betake  itself  to  a  reexam- 
ination of  its  defenses.  But  before  the  man  who 
has  studied  in  a  newspaper  office  and  graduated 
from  a  clubroom ;  before  the  Ishmaelite  who 
parades  the  country  over,  for  five  hundred  dollars 
a  night,  caricaturing  all  great  and  sacred  things  ; 
before  the  politician  whose  success  has  come 
through  the  debasement  of  his  better  self  and 
nobler  being  ;  before  the  professor  of  physics  who 
has  not  discovered  the  eternal  Spirit  as  he  might 
a  new  line  in  the  solar  spectrum — before  such  as 
these,  possess  your  soul  in  patience  and  your  faith 
in  confidence.  Spiritual  truth  and  spiritual  hopes 
have  never  promised  themselves  unto  such  seekers. 
Such  have,  such  get,  what  they  desire.  They 
have  their  reward,  but  this  reward  is  not  any  one 
of  the  things  that  God  has  prepared  for  them  that 
love  Him.  To  every  knowledge  is  its  own  fixed 
condition.  You  cannot  see  the  odor  of  a  rose. 
You  cannot  weigh  the  glories  of  a  sunset  in  a 
grocer's  scale.  You  cannot  analyze  the  beauty  of 
a  lily  or  violet.  You  cannot  mathematically  dem- 
onstrate the  winsomeness  and  the  worthiness  of 
virtue.     So  the  things  of  God  are  not  the  product 


6o  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

of  human  cerebration,  but  are  His  revelation  unto 
the  humble  and  reverent  spirit  of  His  human 
child. 

IV.  But  I  must  add  yet  again  that  we  ought 
not  to  allow  ourselves  to  be  greatly  troubled  by 
the  skepticism  of  prominent  people,  for  the  reason 
that  this  unbelief  may  be  punitive  in  its  nature — 
the  penalty  of  a  false  and  bad  life. 

In  many  parts  of  the  Bible  it  is  written  down  in 
plainest  words  that  light  is  withdrawn  from  those 
who  will  not  walk  in  it;  that  the  cataract  of 
unbelief  gathers  over  the  eyes  which  will  not 
look  upon  truth  when  she  stands  radiant  before 
them.  Listen  to  these  words  from  the  lips  of 
Jesus  :  "  Walk  while  ye  have  the  light,  that  dark- 
ness overtake  you  not.  .  .  While  ye  have  the 
light,  believe  on  the  light,  that  ye  may  become 
sons  of  light ;  "  and  these  other  ominous  words : 
"  Because  they  received  not  the  love  of  the  truth 
.  .  .  God  shall  send  them  strong  delusion,  that 
they  should  believe  a  lie." 

We  have  no  reason  to  conclude  that  this  law 
is  inoperative  in  our  day.  Inoperative  ?  Why, 
have  we  not  with  our  own  eyes  seen  cultured  and 
learned  men  turn  away  from  the  great,  broad 
teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  unto  table  tippings  and 
the  materialization  of  spirits  ?     Have  we  not  seen 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        61 

men,  wearing  the  laurels  of  science  on  their  brows, 
close  their  eyes  to  the  glory  of  a  personal  Creator 
and  turn  unto  matter  as  holding  within  it  the 
promise  and  potency  of  every  form  of  life  ?  Do 
we  not  in  this  present  day  have  before  our  eyes 
the  spectacle  of  men  prominent  in  the  world  of  ^ 
law  and  letters,  in  pitiful  bondage  to  a  coarsely- 
shrewd,  and  grotesquely-pretentious  woman  ? 

What  is  the  explanation  of  all  this — this  of 
great  men  showing  themselves  so  little,  this  of 
the  unbeliever  having  become  so  credulous  as  to 
hug  to  his  bosom  the  most  puerile  nonsense? 
Read  the  explanation  in  the  great  law  of  the 
moral  world  to  which  I  have  referred. 

What  then  shall  we  do  ?  What  shall  be  our 
attitude  toward  such  skepticism  ?  Shall  we  refuse 
to  look  upon  the  sun,  because  there  are  those 
who  have  chosen  darkness  rather  than  light  and 
lost  their  sight  by  so  doing?  Because  moral 
law  has  visited  its  penalty  of  the  darkened  under- 
standing upon  those  who  walked  not  in  the  light 
when  it  was  given  them,  shall  we  therefore  turn 
from  the  same  light  ? 

Rather  is  there  not  just  here  a  measureless 
admonition  that  we  should  cleave  unto  the  truth 
which  we  know,  and  hasten  to  embody  it  in  our 
lives  ?     Carlyle,  in  speaking  upon  the  law  and  the 


62  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

penalty  here,  quotes  from  the  Koran  this  incident 
of  certain  dwellers  by  the  Dead  Sea  to  whom 
Moses  was  sent :  "  They  sniffed  and  sneered  at 
the  prophet,  saw  no  comeliness  in  him,  and  so  he 
withdrew.  But  nature  and  other  rigorous  vorac- 
ities did  not  withdraw.  When  next  we  find  these 
dwellers  by  the  Dead  Sea  they  are,  according  to 
the  Koran,  all  changed  into  apes.  By  not  using 
their  souls  they  lost  them,  and  now  their  only 
employment  is  to  sit  there  and  look  out  into  the 
dreariest  and  most  undecipherable  sort  of  a  uni- 
verse. Only  once  in  seven  days  do  they  remem- 
ber that  they  once  had  souls."  And  to  this  inci- 
dent the  stern  prophet  of  reality  appends  these 
quaint  and  penetrating  words :  "  Have  you  never, 
my  reader,  in  your  travels  fallen  in  with  parties  of 
the  tribe  ?  Methinks  they  have  grown  quite 
numerous  of  late." 

Oh,  yes,  numerous  surely !  The  foolish  wise 
man,  the  believing  unbeliever,  credulous  of  the 
flimsiest  speculations  and  the  crudest  guesses, 
swallowing  readily  the  baldest  contradictions  of 
soul-consciousness  and  spiritual  intuition,  willing 
to  take  up  with  any  "  ism,"  no  matter  how  absurd 
— he  is  upon  every  side  of  us. 

But  wherever  he  appears,  he  is  the  embodied 
penalty  of  moral  law  :  one  who  has  lost  his  soul 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        63 

by  not  using  it :  a  living  illustration  of  the  great 
truth  that  light  cannot  be  scorned  with  impunity : 
a  moving  statue  of  one  who  professing  himself  to 
be  wise  has  become  a  fool,  and  who  is  now  com- 
pelled to  and  fro  throughout  the  earth,  that  with 
garrulous  lips  he  may  warn  the  truth-respecting 
and  the  self-respecting  soul  from  his  own  pitiful 
doom. 

My  fellow-Christians,  it  is  the  characteristic  of 
every  age  and  of  individual  life  to  imagine  that  its 
experience  is  peculiar.  So  strong  and  general  is 
this  tendency,  that  an  inspired  apostle  deemed 
its  correction  nothing  less  than  a  comfort  and  an 
inspiration.  "Think  it  not  strange,"  writes  he, 
"  concerning  the  fiery  trial  which  is  to  try  you  as 
though  some  strange  thing  happened  unto  you." 
And  again  he  writes,  "  There  hath  no  temptation 
taken  you  but  such  as  is  common  to  man."  And 
so  I  say  unto  you  to-day,  you  who  are  fighting 
the  good  fight  of  faith,  no  strange  thing  has  hap- 
pened unto  you.  You  may  be  saying  within  your- 
self, "  Science  is  arraying  itself  against  religion  ; 
everywhere  the  banner  of  infidelity  is  being  lifted 
up — there  never  was  such  a  day."  But  in  this  you 
are  mistaken.  Listen  to  this  voice  from  out  St. 
Peter's  day  :  "  Where  is  the  promise  of  His  com- 
ing?  for  since  the  fathers  fell  asleep,  all   things 


64  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning  of  the 
creation."  That  is,  the  natural,  that  which  we  can 
see,  is  all  that  we  can  know  of.  So  agnosticism 
is  at  least  eighteen  centuries  old.  Listen  again  as 
Paul  gives  voice  to  a  special  danger  of  his  day : 
"  They  teach  things  which  they  ought  not,  for 
filthy  lucre's  sake."  There  is  your  infidel  lecturer, 
your  skeptical  professor  in  the  first  century.  And 
again  the  same  apostle  writes  to  Timothy :  "  Keep 
that  which  is  committed  to  thy  trust,  avoiding 
profane  and  vain  babblings,  and  oppositions  of 
science  falsely  so  called."  There  is  scientific 
skepticism  nineteen  hundred  years  deep  in  the 
past. 

I  tell  you  that  every  generation  of  Christians, 
since  the  Cross  ran  red  upon  Calvary,  has  held 
to  faith  against  the  same  assaults  that  you  feel  and 
fear  to-day.  If  you  cannot  triumph  over  these 
assaults,  if  you  cannot  hold  on  to  faith  against 
these  oppositions,  then  are  you  no  true  descend- 
ants of  those  who  have  entered  into  rest,  and  now 
hang  above  you  as  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses. 

And  I  beseech  you,  if  your  faith  is  growing 
weak,  if  you  feel  that  it  is  trembling  before  the 
assaults  of  skepticism,  seek  not  to  bolster  it  up  by 
counter  arguments.  Turn  rather  from  the  un- 
vvorthiness    in   your   life.     Repent    of  your   dis- 


SKEPTICISM  OF  PROMINENT  PEOPLE        65 

loyalty  to  truth  already  known.  Seek  the  true ; 
love  the  pure ;  do  the  good.  Live  nearer  to  Him 
who  is  the  truth.  Open  your  heart  to  the  inflow- 
ing of  the  divine  Spirit.  Show  all  reverence  to 
your  spiritual  intuitions.  Plead  the  promise,  "  If 
any  man  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  and  it 
shall  be  given  him." 

So  shall  the  great  things  of  the  spiritual  world 
daily  become  more  certain  to  your  soul ;  so  shall 
profane  and  vain  babblings  cease  to  trouble  you  ; 
so  shall  the  scraps  of  human  learning  fall  upon 
your  great  certitude  and  cause  not  a  tremor  within 
it ;  and  so  with  jjeace  in  the  heart,  along  the  path 
that  shines  brighter  and  brighter,  shall  you  pass 
forward  until  the  veil  drops  from  your  eyes  and 
you  stand  face  to  face  with  the  solved  mystery  of 
the  universe.  Do  not  imagine  that  the  condition 
here  is  some  wonderful  spiritual  elevation.  The 
water-drop  reflects  the  glorious  sun,  and  so  a 
thought  of  tender  love,  so  an  act  of  gentle  kind- 
ness may  reveal  the  Infinite  Goodness,  and  make 
the  whole  spiritual  universe  real  unto  your  soul. 

Ye  who  would  come  unto  a  stronger  faith,  re- 
member that  the  sublime  verities  of  the  moral 
world  are  hidden  from  the  "wise  and  prudent." 
Remember  that  a  man  may  be  over-smart,  over- 
wise  toward   God — so  wise   and   so   smart  that 


66  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

loving  Omniscience  must  abandon  the  hope  of 
teaching  him.  Remember  also  that  childhood  is 
nearest  to  truth,  and  love,  and  God,  and  that  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  easily  and  forevermore, 
enters  the  one  vi^ho  becomes  as  a  little  child. 


IV 


JESUS'   ROYAL   GRANT   TO   THE 
HUMAN    HEART 


IV 

JESUS'  ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART 
"  Be  not  therefore  anxious  for  the  morrow." — Matt,  vi :  34. 

At  the  very  outset,  and  with  all  confidence,  we 
may  say  that  the  Saviour  does  not  issue  this 
injunction  against  prevision,  against  the  anticipa- 
tion of  the  future  by  which  man  seems  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  brutes  that  perish.  Faith, 
which  is  fundamental  in  religion,  is  the  substance 
of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen.  "  By  faith,  Noah  being  warned  of  God  of 
things  not  seen  as  yet,  prepared  an  ark."  "  By 
faith,  Abraham  when  he  was  called  to  go  out  into 
a  place  which  he  should  afterwards  receive  for  an 
inheritance,  obeyed ;  and  he  went  out  not  know- 
ing whither  he  went."  One  of  the  most  charac- 
teristic and  general  confessions  of  the  Christian 
centuries  has  its  expression  in  these  words,  "  We 
walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight."  Jesus'  own  admoni- 
tions, and  exhortations,  and  teachings,  even  the 
solemnest  of  them,  reach  out  unto  and  take  hold 
of  the  future,  finding   in   this  future  both    their 

69 


^o  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

justification  and  their  emphasis.  Yes,  surely  re- 
Hgion  is  a  deahng  in  moral  futures  !  And  we  can- 
not believe  that  the  great  Teacher,  with  one  voice 
fixes  our  attention  upon  the  future,  and  with 
another  voice  bids  us  forget  that  future.  He  does 
not  with  one  hand  burn  the  morrow  into  our  souls, 
and  with  the  other  shut  it  out  from  our  thoughts. 
No !  the  injunction  of  the  text  is  not  against  pre- 
vision, not  against  the  anticipation  of  the  future, 
but  against  anxiety,  against  gnawing,  weakening, 
distressing  care. 

This  injunction  also  is  issued  only  to  a  certain 
kind  or  type  of  human  Hfe. 

Will  you  go  to  the  man  who  is  giving  way  to 
the  passion  for  strong  drink  and  say,  "  Be  not 
anxious  for  the  morrow  "  ?  To  the  man  who  is 
living  beyond  his  means  and  embezzling  money 
to  keep  up  the  vicious  and  pitiful  display,  will  you 
go  and  say,  "  Be  not  anxious  for  the  morrow  "  ? 
Why,  both  of  these  classes  and  all  their  kindred 
ought  to  be  full  of  anxiety  for  the  future.  So  not 
to  the  human  life  which  is  forgetting  God  and 
restraining  prayer  and  neglecting  duty ;  not  to 
the  one  who  is  living  the  mere  sense  life,  as  if 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  responsibility,  or  sin, 
or  judgment,  or  God,  not  to  such  a  type  of  Hfe 
does   Jesus    ever   say,  "  Be  not  anxious   for  the 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART     71 

future  " ;  but  to  the  reverent,  the  thoughtful,  the 
conscientious,  to  the  man  who  is  doing  the  best 
he  knows,  to  the  Hfe  which  is  purposely  and 
lovingly  a  child  of  the  Great  Father — to  this  one 
the  voice  of  Jesus  comes  evermore  in  the  shape 
of  these  beautiful  words,  "  Be  not  anxious  for  the 
morrow." 

But  how  shall  we  come  to  heed  this  injunction 
of  our  Lord  ?  How  shall  we  come  to  face,  and 
to  make  continual  approach  to  the  type  of  life 
that  its  words  disclose  and  authorize?  What  is 
the  basis,  standing  upon  which,  we  may  intelli- 
gently and  hopefully  strive  to  come  unto  faith  of 
soul,  calmness  of  life,  and  trust  for  the  future? 
Some  exclusions  must  be  made  here,  and  those 
without  hesitation. 

First,  will-power.  It  is  vain  to  say,  "  I  will  not 
worry."  This  for  two  reasons.  The  will  has  no 
such  power  over  the  heart,  and  this  power,  what- 
ever its  strength  to-day,  may  itself  be  undermined 
and  fall  into  a  pitiful  weakness.  Neither  can  we 
successfully  address  ourselves  to  the  life-lesson 
set  before  us  by  the  Saviour  under  the  direction 
of  youth  and  health.  The  strength  of  to-day 
may  vanish  in  the  sickness  of  to-morrow,  and 
youth  is  an  unreliable  confidence,  an  ally  whose 
forces  are  continually  deserting  us.     Neither  can 


72  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

earthly  abundance  help  us  greatly  here.  Money 
cannot  feed  the  heart  with  peace  even  when  it  is 
with  us,  and  we  know  that  it  cannot  go  with  us 
into  many  of  the  morrows  which  shall  be  most 
prolific  of  anxiety.  What  power  shall  money 
have  to  serve  us  in  the  morrow  of  sorrow?  in 
the  morrow  of  pain  ?  in  the  morrow  of  world- 
leaving  ?     in  the  morrow  of  judgment  ? 

If  then  these  exclusions  and  all  similar  ones 
must  be  unhesitatingly  made,  what  is  left  us  as 
preparation  for  obedience  to  the  injunction  of  the 
Saviour  ? 

Simply  this :  We  must  have  in  full  and  forceful 
heart-possession  the  conviction  which  warrants 
the  banishment  of  anxiety.  This  is  made  up  of 
two  parts — the  one,  a  fact  which  we  all  do  know 
and  which  Jesus  lifted  up  into  unfading  light,  and 
the  other  the  truth  which  He  came  into  the  world 
to  reveal  and  to  teach.  This  fact  is  the  impotency 
of  man ;  this  truth  is  the  love  of  God.  Our  hope 
then,  and  our  only  hope,  of  coming  unto  the  life, 
the  blessed  life  unto  which  Jesus  calls,  lies  in  our 
realization  of  these  two  great  laws  : 

First,  the  helplessness  of  man  over  the  morrow. 
Secondly,  the  love  of  God  that  embosoms  this 
morrow. 

Now  let  me  serve  you  as  best  I  may  in  this 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART    73 

hour,  by  echoing  within  your  ears  and  hearts  the 
voices  with  which  Jesus  teaches  these  two  great 
conditions  of  the  trustful  and  happy  Hfe. 

Listen,  first  of  all,  to  His  voice  as  He  sets  forth 
the  pitiful  impotency  of  man : 

**  Which  of  you  by  taking  thought  can  add  one 
cubit  unto  his  stature  ?  "  "  If  ye  then  be  not  able 
to  do  that  thing  which  is  least,  why  take  ye 
thought  for  the  rest?"  Dwell,  I  pray  you,  for  a 
moment  upon  this  declaration,  if  so  be  it  may 
sink  into  your  heart  with  its  blessed  power  of 
emancipation  and  of  trust. 

The  helplessness  of  the  human  life  in  relation 
to  the  future  is  so  complete  as  to  be  fairly  pitiful. 
It  reaches  even  unto  the  extent  of  absolute  igno- 
rance of  this  future.  "  For  ye  know  not  what 
shall  be  on  the  morrow."  How  then  can  you 
prepare  for  the  unseen  ?  How  can  your  anxiety 
set  in  order  that  which  is  and  must  remain  abso- 
lutely unknown  ?  The  curtain  may  rise  upon  a 
scene  of  joy  or  upon  a  scene  of  sorrow :  upon 
health  or  upon  sickness  :  upon  the  bountiful  frui- 
tion of  your  dearest  hopes  or  upon  these  hopes 
withered  and  scattered  as  so  many  autumn  leaves. 
It  may  rise  upon  a  scene  in  which  success  shall 
sit  at  her  ease  while  the  golden  horn  of  plenty 
empties  itself  into  her  overflowing  lap,  or  it  may 


74  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

rise  upon  a  scene  of  poverty,  bare  and  bleak,  swept 
by  biting  winds  and  overhung  with  wrathful 
clouds.  What  now  ?  Shall  your  soul  consume 
itself  with  anxiety  over  the  to-morrow  which 
may  come  to  mock  all  your  anticipations  ?  Shall 
you  prepare  for  adversity,  when  in  the  book  of 
the  future,  prosperity  is  written  over  against  your 
name  ?  Shall  you  arrange  a  bottle  for  your  tears, 
when  God  intends  that  you  shall  laugh  instead  ? 
Oh,  how  many  human  lives  have  prepared  for  a 
future  which  they  never  were  to  see ;  arranged 
for  the  crossing  of  bridges  unto  which  they  never 
were  to  come ;  laboriously  planned  for  the  rolling 
away  of  stones,  which  they  were  to  find,  when 
they  came  up  to  them,  already  rolled  away  !  How 
many  have  anticipated  with  anxiety  the  days  and 
the  cares  of  old  age  when  it  was  written  in  God's 
book  that  they  should  die  young !  How  many 
have  fretted  their  souls  over  coming  poverty,  and 
with  fingers  of  borrowed  care  have  raveled  out 
the  beautiful  garment  of  present  happiness,  when 
heaven's  voice  had  said  of  the  future,  Let  it 
bring  them  riches !  What  a  countless  number 
of  parents  have  worried  themselves  over  the  fu- 
ture settlement  of  their  children,  have  fed  their 
souls  with  increasing  anxiety  as  to  what  their 
children  would  do  when  bereft  of  parental  love 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART     75 

and  care,  when  it  was  God's  purpose  all  the 
while  to  take  the  children  first !  What  numbers 
throughout  the  world  have  looked  forward  to  and 
laid  their  plans  for  the  quiet  evening  of  life  when 
business  should  be  laid  aside  and  all  its  rasping 
cares  dismissed,  and  then  have  dropped  dead  in 
the  harness,  its  galls  and  abrasions  so  many  run- 
ning sores  upon  all  their  being ! 

It  is  surely  one  of  the  most  solemn  and  pathetic 
thoughts  which  can  enter  the  mind  of  man  that 
a  very  large  if  not  the  greater  part  of  the  suffer- 
ing of  human  hearts  has  been  over  things  that 
never  were  to  be — has  been  trouble  borrowed  in 
view  of  imaginary  days  and  imaginary  dangers. 
I  can  see  him  now — the  rich  fool  as  he  starts 
forth  from  the  canvas  of  the  Great  Master.  He 
is  in  great  perplexity  of  mind  over  what  he  shall 
do  with  his  ripening  fruits  and  increasing  goods. 
Even  his  present  abundance  he  could  not  enjoy, 
so  full  was  he  of  anxiety  over  the  new  barns  that 
were  necessary  for  the  garnering  of  his  increasing 
wealth.  O  fool,  fool, — for  such  the  world  will 
ever  call  thee, — thou  art  giving  thyself  trouble 
over  a  future  which  thou  shalt  never  see !  Thou 
art  saying  what  thou  wilt  do,  how  thou  wilt  meet 
thy  coming  days  when  from  the  lips  of  Him  in 
whose  hands  thy  breath  is,  there  has  already  gone 


76  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

forth  the  word,  "  This  night  thy  soul  shall  be  re- 
quired of  thee." 

I  see  those  others  also — a  moving,  flying  pict- 
ure of  the  same  truth.  As  the  train  dashes  on- 
ward, how  many  hearts  within  it  are  full  of  anxiety 
for  the  morrow  !  "  If  my  health  should  continue  to 
grow  worse,"  says  one  within  his  heart,  "  I  shall  be 
obliged  to  give  up  my  business,  and  then  what  will 
my  poor  family  do  ?  "  Another  is  fearing  and 
troubled  lest  the  sickness  of  his  wife  should  prove 
fatal  and  he  be  left  with  motherless  children  to  care 
for.  Still  another  is  in  distress  for  fear  the  invest- 
ment which  is  all  his  fortune  shall  prove  unsound 
and  he  be  left  in  poverty  and  want. 

So  throughout  the  train — anxiety  for  the  mor- 
row fills  human  hearts,  furrows  human  faces,  when 
suddenly  a  lurch,  a  plunge,  a  crash,  a  mass  of 
dying  groans,  and  a  score  of  these  anxious  human 
souls  are  flying  Godward,  all  thoughts  of  earth's 
to-morrow  forever  out  of  their  minds. 

This  also  is  true.  The  future  may  be  much 
brighter  than  the  anxiety  of  human  hearts  depicts. 
You  who  fear  an  early  death  may  see  your  four- 
score years.  Health  may  be  waiting  for  you  who 
fear  a  lifelong  invalidism.  The  difficulties  which 
you  think  you  see  in  your  future  pathway  may  be 
only  clumps  of  mist  which  will  resolve  themselves 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART  ^y 

and  disappear  as  you  draw  closer.  The  lions  may 
be  chained.  You  may  find  that  everything  is  for 
you  instead  of  everything  being  against  you.  You 
may  come  upon  joy  when  you  expect  sorrow; 
meet  with  success  when  you  anticipate  failure  ; 
come  out  upon  a  broad,  smooth  current  where 
you  have  marked  down  the  shooting  rapids  and 
the  fearful  falls.  At  least  this  much  is  true  :  your 
future  is  altogether  unknown  to  you,  and  no 
anxiety  on  your  part  can  prepare  you  for  it. 

So  Jesus  reasons  when  to-day  He  speaks  unto 
you  to  say,  "  Be  not  anxious  for  the  morrow."  But 
He  does  not  stop  with  this  argument ;  He  does 
not  rest  His  case  with  your  heart  upon  this  show- 
ing. Beyond  this  He  goes  into  that  which  He 
makes  His  great  and  characteristic  argument  with 
the  anxious  soul  of  man — viz.,  the  measureless 
and  unfailing  love  of  the  Father  which  is  in 
heaven.  Without  this,  poor  and  weak  would 
have  been  His  case.  Our  impotency,  our  igno- 
rance would  be  a  poor  schoolmaster  to  bring  us 
unto  trust — poor  comfort  to  wrap  round  our 
fearing  hearts  unless  they  also  were  themselves 
wrapped  round  about  with  the  love  which  is  quick 
to  pity  and  able  to  save. 

The  fundamental,  the  all-conditioning  fact  of  our 
world  and  of  the  universe  is  the  existence  of  the 


78  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

infinite  God,  and  the  fundamental  truth  concern- 
ing this  infinite  God  is  that  He  is  a  benignant 
power.  He  is  the  Father  of  all  the  children  of 
earth  and  time ;  His  highest,  His  all-inclusive 
name  is  Love ;  and  this  love  throned  in  the  heav- 
ens is  the  great,  the  unanswerable  argument  against 
the  anxiety  that  furrows  the  face  and  consumes 
the  heart  of  His  human  child.  If  this  love  did 
not  exist,  if  it  might  fail,  vain  would  it  be  to  plead 
the  ignorance  and  the  helplessness  of  the  human 
life — vain  the  attempt  to  mention  any  other  or  all 
other  reasons  for  the  dismission  of  anxiety  and 
fear.  If  the  completeness  of  infinite  love  flowed 
not  out  unto  our  incompleteness,  then  we  might 
well  worry  and  fear  all  our  earthly  days.  If  a 
frown  might  gather  upon  that  face  which  is  the 
light  of  the  universe,  then  would  every  human 
heart  have  good  reason  for  the  apprehension  of 
evil,  for  at  any  moment  this  frown  might  fall  as 
night  upon  the  joy  and  the  hope  of  man.  If  a 
malignant  thought  might  lift  its  dark  form  upward 
in  that  heart  whose  pulsations  feed  all  life  and 
being,  then  might  every  creature  life  reach  out 
with  fear  and  trembling  for  the  future,  for  that 
wrathful  thought  might  at  any  moment  drive  as 
a  thunderbolt  through  the  home  and  the  joy  of 
the  soul. 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART     79 

But  this  we  know  from  Jesus'  lips  can  never 
be.  Love  it  is  that  illumines  the  face  that  from 
the  depths  looks  out  upon  man  and  the  world, 
and  love  shall  beautify  its  features  forever.  Love 
it  is  that  fills  the  heart  that  feeds  the  stream  of 
human  hope,  and  this  love  in  an  endless  current 
shall  flow  forth  unto  all  creature  need.  This,  then, 
is  the  great,  the  supreme  argument  against  anx- 
iety which  Jesus  makes  with  you  to-day — viz. : 
Will  you  not  trust  your  future  in  the  hands  of 
the  infinite  Love  ?  Will  you  not,  as  a  child, 
calmly  commit  yourself  unto  the  care  of  the 
almighty  and  all-loving  Father?  Will  you  not, 
as  you  look  forth  upon  the  long,  long  path  by 
which  you  go,  let  your  heart  have  expression  in 
this  triumph  of  faith  ? 

"  I  know  not  what  the  future  hath 
Of  marvel  or  surprise  ; 
Assured  alone,  that  life  and  death 
His  mercy  underlies." 

That  you  may  be  able  to  fill  your  heart  with  a 
measure  of  this  blessed  confidence,  Jesus  asks  you 
to  look  forth  upon  the  broad  fields  whereon  in 
illuminated  characters  is  written  the  demonstration 
of  an  overruling  power  and  a  Divine  care.  Listen 
to  His  words  and  His  argument :     "  Behold  the 


So  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

fowls  of  the  air :  for  they  sow  not,  neither  do  they 
reap.  .  .  Yet  your  heavenly  Father  feedeth  them." 
Oh,  ye  anxious  ones,  can  you  not  believe  that 
you  are  much  better  than  the  fowls,  much 
worthier  of  the  Divine  care,  much  surer  of  receiv- 
ing it  ? 

Look  forth  again,  and,  while  you  look,  listen 
still  to  the  Saviour's  voice  of  interpretation.  "  Con- 
sider the  hlies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow ;  they 
toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin  :  And  yet  I  say  unto 
you,  That  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not 
arrayed  like  one  of  these."  Oh  !  ye  whose  hearts 
are  filled  with  anxiety  for  the  morrow,  can  you  not 
while  you  look  and  while  you  listen  make  your 
own  this  sweet  inference  which  Jesus  voices  for 
you  :  "  If,  then,  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the 
field,  .  .  .  shall  He  not  much  more  clothe  you, 
Oh  !  ye  of  little  faith  ?  " 

Once  more  lift  up  your  eyes  upon  the  illumi- 
nated field,  and  may  those  eyes  be  opened  that 
you  may  see. 

Behold  Calvary's  stark  and  bitter  cross  flowing 
red  with  the  blood  of  an  infinite  sacrifice !  Draw 
closer  to  this  Cross,  that  your  eyes  may  be  able 
to  spell  out  these  words  that  are  written  upon  it : 
"  If  God  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered 
Him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  He  not  with  Him 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART     8i 

also  freely  give  us  all  things  ? "  So  we  read 
in  letters  each  one  of  which  is  crimson  with  a 
love  that  was  unto  death.  So  unto  this  glo- 
rious fullness  rounds  out  the  truth  which  the 
Divine  Teacher  to-day  gives  unto  you  for  the 
rebuking  and  forbidding  of  your  anxious  heart. 
Take  it  again,  this  divine  argument,  in  all  its  com- 
pleteness. The  Feeder  of  the  fowls,  the  Limner 
of  the  lilies,  the  Giver  of  the  Saviour — the  future, 
your  future,  is  in  the  hands  of  this  loving  One,  of 
this  great  Care-taker,  of  this  ungrudging  and  un- 
ceasing Giver,  and  you  may  safely  trust  Him 
with  it. 

But  all  this,  I  know,  may  be  truth  only  for  the 
head.  What  power  shall  give  it  unto  the  heart, 
shall  make  it  the  inspiration,  the  strength  and  the 
joy  of  earth's  passing  days  ?  Many  things  seem 
against  us  here,  I  know.  Over  the  chamber  door 
of  many  of  our  hearts  sits  the  raven  form  of  in- 
herited melancholy.  The  dregs  of  poisoned  lives 
run  in  our  veins,  and  the  specters  of  unbelief, 
these  also  a  birthmark,  flit  through  our  minds  ! 
Then,  besides,  we  live  in  a  world  full  of  anxiety 
and  fear,  with  care  upon  every  side  of  us  forever- 
more  lifting  up  its  horse-leech  cry !  Then,  to 
crown  all,  we  have  behind  us,  many  of  us,  years 
of  living,  so  poor,  so  superficial,  so  false,  so  self- 
6 


82  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

seeking  and  self- trusting  as  almost  to  disable  the 
power  of  beautiful  faith.  How  can  we,  how  can 
such  as  we,  come  unto  peace?  In  such  a  world, 
and  at  the  end  of  these  selfish,  restless,  fearing, 
profitless  days,  how  can  we  trust  ? 

To  all  this  I  can  reply  only  by  saying  that  no 
unworthiness  of  the  past  shackles  and  imprisons 
our  beautiful  possibilities  as  children  of  the  infinite 
Father.  To  all  this  I  can  reply  only  by  saying 
there  is  a  Divine  Spirit  whose  office  it  is  to  take  of 
the  things  of  God  and  show  them  unto  men,  whose 
prerogative  it  is  to  shed  abroad  in  human  hearts 
the  knowledge  of  the  power  of  the  Divine  Love. 
To  all  this  I  can  reply  only  by  saying  a  man  may 
be  born  when  he  is  old,  so  old — born  into  the 
kingdom  of  God,  born  of  the  Spirit  of  God ! 

To  this  revealer  of  God  and  recreator  of  man, 
I  pray  you  turn.  Upon  bended  knees,  beseech 
His  inspiration,  His  interpretation  of  the  Saviour's 
argument.  His  revelation  of  the  Divine  Love,  His 
teaching  of  the  lesson  of  the  child's  love  and  the 
child's  trust. 

My  fellow-men,  I  come  to  you — unto  you 
who  believe  in  God  as  Father  and  Jesus  Christ 
as  Saviour — with  this  word  of  invitation :  Trust 
God.  Let  the  fowls  of  the  air,  always  fed ;  let 
the  grass    of    the    field,    always  clothed ;  let  the 


ROYAL  GRANT  TO  THE  HUMAN  HEART     83 

fall  of  the  sparrow,  always  noted ;  let  the  cross 
of  the  Saviour,  always  luminous ;  let  the  sweet 
name  of  Father  brought  by  Jesus  from  the  skies, 
and  now  vocal  in  the  air  of  earth,  emphasize  to 
you  the  invitation  : — Trust  God  with  your  future  ! 
Oh,  ye  children  of  men  whose  flesh  is  often  weak, 
whose  hearts  are  often  fearing,  there  is  no  one 
who  loves  you  as  God  loves  you,  there  is  no  one 
who  yearns  for  your  confidence  as  God  yearns  for 
it !  Oh,  ye  whose  hearts  hold  a  bitterness  with 
which  a  stranger  may  not  intermeddle,  and  who 
along  so  many  solitary  paths  are  making  your 
ways  through  life's  darkness  unto  your  little 
graves,  there  is  One  on  high  who  is  touched  with 
the  feeling  of  your  infirmities,  and  to-day  the  min- 
ister plenipotentiary  from  this  height  of  infinite 
love  stands  by  your  side  and,  pointing  you  down 
the  long,  long  line  of  the  morrows — the  morrow 
of  loss,  the  morrow  of  sorrow,  the  morrow  of 
weakness,  the  morrow  of  pain,  the  morrow  of 
death,  the  morrow  of  judgment,  the  morrow  of 
immortality — speaks  unto  your  heart  to  say  :  '*  Be 
not  anxious,  for,  though  you  are  weak,  God  is 
strong  and  good." 

Be  yours  the  answer  of  the  helpless,  loving, 
trusting  child,  the  answer  of  trust  which  shall  sing 
to  sleep  the  doubts  and  the  fears  of  your  haunted 


84  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

and  restless  hearts  with  the  voice  of  this  sweet 
confidence.  The  future — my  future — is  in  God's 
hand,  and  love  shall  make  the  gift ! 

And  so  beside  the  silent  sea, 

I  wait  the  muffled  oar  ; 
No  harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me 

On  ocean  or  on  shore. 

I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 

Their  fronded  palms  in  air  ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 

Beyond  His  love  and  care. 


V 

THE    BIBLICAL   SPECIES 


V 

THE   BIBLICAL   SPECIES 
"  The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God." — Ps.  liii :  i. 

The  Bible  does  not  argue  the  existence  of  God. 
It  takes  this  for  granted,  as  it  takes  the  being  of 
man  for  granted,  as  it  takes  the  existence  of  the 
material  universe  for  granted.  Its  very  first 
words  are :  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth." 

Neither  does  the  Bible  ever  stop  to  make  ex- 
plicit and  positive  assertion  of  the  existence  of 
God.  This  also  it  seems  to  regard  as  unneces- 
sary, an  affront  to  human  reason,  and  a  shame  to 
the  intuitions  of  the  soul.  But  although  it  does 
not  argue  nor  categorically  assert  the  being  of 
God,  the  Bible  has  now  and  then  a  word  of  irony 
and  scorn  for  the  atheism  which  is  whispered  in 
the  heart  or  spoken  by  the  life.  The  text  is  an 
example  of  the  former ;  and  I  would  have  you  at 
this  time  look  into  some  very  common  and  crys- 
talline depths  round  about  you,  that  so  be,  for  the 

87 


SB  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

quickening  of  your  faith,  you  may  catch  the  glint 
of  its  bitter  and  beautiful  scorn. 

First  of  all,  I  ask  you  to  gaze  into  the  depths 
of  the  material  universe. 

This  is  unmeasured  and  immeasurable.  It  is 
unbounded ;  it  is  boundless.  Take  your  stand 
upon  the  rounded  surface  of  our  globe  and  look 
into  the  celestial  depths.  You  perceive  no  line 
of  limitation ;  you  can  discover  no  outer  edge ; 
you  can  conceive  even  of  no  circumference.  As 
far  as  the  unassisted  eye  can  reach,  as  far  as  the 
eagle  eye  of  the  telescope  can  penetrate ;  yea,  as 
far  as  imagination  can  soar,  it  is  the  same  un- 
changing vista — world  upon  world,  sun  upon  sun, 
system  upon  system,  in  endless  succession  and 
with  ever-increasing  glory !  Count  the  trees  of 
the  forest — there  is  a  world  for  every  one  !  Num- 
ber the  flowers  of  the  field — there  is  a  sun  for 
every  one !  Yea,  count  the  millions  of  the  human 
race,  and  then  behold  in  the  separating  clusters 
of  the  Milky  Way  not  only  a  sun,  but  a  system 
for  every  individual  life !  Take  the  wings  of  the 
morning, — your  chariot,  the  swift-winged  light 
that  girdles  our  globe  eight  times  in  a  second, — 
and  forty  centuries  shall  have  swept  by  you  be- 
fore you  reach  yon  shining  point  which  is  nightly 
telling  to  our  earth   the  wondrous   story  of  its 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  89 

birth.  Make  this  jeweled  stepping  stone  a  new 
starting  point ;  add  four  thousand  years  of  more 
than  lightning  speed, — eight  thousand  years  you 
have  now  traveled,  new-darted  with  the  light, — 
where  is  the  circumference, — where  the  outer 
edge  ?  Ah  !  if  this  is  what  you  seek,  you  may  as 
well  turn  backward  in  your  flight,  for  immensity 
girts  you  in — that  immensity  of  which  every 
point  is  equally  the  center!  Such  is  the  material 
grandeur,  the  inconceivable  vastness,  the  awful 
depths  into  which  the  man  must  look  who  says 
within  his  heart,  "  No  God  !  No  God !" 

Take  another  point.  All  these  worlds,  all  these 
suns,  all  these  systems  are  swung  in  empty  space, 
are  hung  upon  nothing.  Listen  to  the  challenge 
as,  breaking  from  the  lips  of  an  unseen  speaker, 
it  rings  its  bold  sublimity  in  the  ears  of  the  patri- 
arch of  Uz :  **  Whereupon  are  the  foundations  of 
the  earth  fastened?  Declare,  if  thou  hast  under- 
standing ! "  Look  about  you !  There  is  no  un- 
moving  point,  no  ponderous  staple  to  which  our 
earth  is  fastened.  Momentarily  transport  your- 
self to  the  other  hemisphere — there  is  no  founda- 
tion upon  which  the  world  is  builded  !  "  Yea,  He 
stretcheth  the  north  over  the  empty  place  and 
hangeth  the  earth  upon  nothing." 

Take  another  fact   still.     These   worlds   innu- 


90  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

merable,  these  worlds  hung  all  upon  nothing, 
are  all  in  motion,  all  sweeping  forward  with 
amazing  velocity.  Yet  there  is  no  collision,  no 
jar,  no  sense  of  motion  even !  The  whole  uni- 
verse, with  not  an  atom  of  it  at  rest,  and  its 
motion  music  —  upon  this  sublimely  beautiful 
thought  let  your  mind  rest  for  a  moment. 

The  moon  revolves  round  our  earth,  the  earth 
revolves  upon  its  axis,  while  moon  and  earth 
sweep  onward  round  the  sun.  The  sun  itself 
revolves,  planet  after  planet  wheel  in  well-ap- 
pointed courses  round  him  as  their  center,  while 
at  the  same  time  earth,  and  heaven,  and  planets, 
and  sun  are  sweeping  forward,  through  unknown 
cycles,  round  a  more  sublime  and  imperious 
center  still !  Yet  there  is  no  collision,  no  jar, 
no  uncertainty.  We  ourselves  are  the  subjects 
of  at  least  three  well-defined  and  amazing  mo- 
tions, and  yet  there  is  no  uncertainty  in  our 
steps,  no  ruffling  of  our  garments,  no  disturb- 
ance of  the  most  delicate  machinery  of  our 
threefold  being. 

But  I  can  dwell  no  longer  upon  this  point. 
Upon  this  vast,  immeasurable,  baseless,  whirring 
universe  it  is  that  the  man  must  look  who  says 
within  his  heart,  "  No  God  !  No  God  !  "  I  appeal 
to  you :  Is  not  the  Psalmist  right  when  he  lifts 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  91 

his  hand  to  brand  the  forehead  of  such  an  one 
with  the  scorn  of  the  text  ?  Does  not  the  deep, 
clear  voice  of  the  human  spirit — does  not  the 
instinct  of  the  human  mind  reach  forth  to  under- 
write the  terrible  verdict,  and,  with  the  living  fire 
of  self-evident  and  necessary  truth,  to  burn  still 
deeper  the  damnatory  mark  ?  This  infinite  ex- 
panse that  encircles  us,  and  which  in  immeas- 
urable waves  of  insufferable  splendor  sweeps  out 
from  us  unto  a  circumference  that  is  never 
reached, — this  mighty  universe,  in  which  our 
earth  is  but  an  atom, — does  it  not  take  up  the 
declaration  of  the  text  and  reecho  it  throughout 
all  its  upper  and  nether  depths  ?  This  flying 
immensity,  whose  flight  is  one  unending  song; 
these  august  worlds  and  blazing  suns,  whose  mo- 
tion is  a  music  that  diadems  the  throne  of  law 
with  a  corona  of  perpetual  incense — do  they  not 
catch  up  the  reproach  and,  weaving  it  into  their 
never-ceasing  watchword  of  glory  to  the  Creator, 
ring  throughout  all  their  infinite  spaces  the  de- 
risive words,  "  Thou  worm  !  Thou  fool !" 

But  let  us  continue  our  endeavor,  not  to  demon- 
strate the  existence  of  Deity,  but  to  realize  the 
justification  of  the  Psalmist's  verdict,  while  we 
turn  to  catch  the  glint  of  the  scorn  of  the  text  in 
and  from    Him   who  is  earth's    most  prominent 


92  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

object — at  once  its  inhabitant,  its  possessor,  and 
its  Lord. 

Here  also  I  will  name  but  three  points — lift  up 
before  you  but  three  capital  truths. 

First,  man,  "  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made." 

Secondly,  man,  with  a  sense  of  dependence. 

Thirdly,  man,  with  a  sense  of  accountability. 

Enough  there  is  in  the  first  of  these,  even  if  I 
should  omit  the  other  two. 

The  human  frame — its  beauty,  its  unity,  its 
complications ;  the  mutual  subserviency  of  all  its 
members,  their  numberless  adaptations  and  inter- 
dependencies;  its  system  of  electric  nerves;  its 
network  of  living  channels ;  its  bands  of  tendon 
and  muscle ;  its  manifold  eye ;  its  mysterious  ear- 
gate  ;  its  organs  of  articulation,  easily  giving  forth 
the  sounds  that  call  for  half  a  thousand  different 
adjustments  with  every  passing  moment;  its 
instrument  of  all  work,  the  thumb — Man,  the  up- 
right, walking,  talking,  rational,  ruling  form  of 
earth's  creation  is  enough  to  justify  unto  reason's 
ear  forever  the  indignant  scorn  of  the  inspired 
writer. 

But  here  we  have  only  commenced.  Think  of 
the  union  of  spirit  and  body;  of  mind  and  matter; 
of  flesh  and  fire!  Think  of  the  immortal  soul 
living,  hiding  within   this  tabernacle   of  flesh — 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  93 

governing,  guiding,  inspiring  this  material  frame; 
now  sending  its  imperial  mandate  along  the  tele- 
graphic nerve  that  a  finger  may  be  lifted;  now 
ordering  the  contraction  and  now  the  expansion 
of  a  muscle  ;  suffering  through  the  body's  hurts ; 
joying  through  the  body's  health ;  disposing  of 
all  the  physical  forces  as  a  general  does  of  his 
troops,  and  sometimes,  as  if  turned  traitor,  infuri- 
ating the  hand  which  clutches  the  dagger  which 
turns  its  frail  companion  to  dust  by  the  act  of  a 
suicide. 

Centuries  ago,  a  man  whose  eyes  were  opened 
looked  upon  all  this  and  gave  out  his  conclusion 
in  these  words :  "  I  will  praise  Thee ;  for  I  am 
fearfully  and  wonderfully  made."  And  while  he 
was  so  wondering  and  praising,  he  heard  by  his 
side  a  human  heart  whispering  into  his  ear  the 
words,  "  No  God !  No  God !"  Was  it  strange 
that  in  such  a  case  the  impressed  and  reverent 
spirit  should  intermit  its  praises  long  enough  to 
turn  and  exclaim :  "  No  God,  and  yet  so  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made — why,  thou  fool !" 

But  let  us  go  farther. 

There  is  a  sense  of  dependence  hidden  within 
the  depths  of  man's  being.  Listen  to  it  as  it 
breaks  forth  in  the  hour  of  sudden  peril !  Hear 
it  as  it  mingles  itself  in  sorrow's  wail !     Catch  its 


94  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

accents,  as  in  minor  tones  it  pours  itself  through 
all  languages  and  through  all  literatures !  It  is 
not  peculiar  to  those  who  have  received  a  relig- 
ious education,  but  belongs  to  man  as  man.  With 
all  men,  in  all  ranks,  in  all  nationalities,  in  all 
ages  it  is  found.  The  prayers  of  all  the  genera- 
tions breathe  it.  The  hymns  of  all  the  genera- 
tions sing  it.  Thus  its  universality  proves  that 
this  sense  of  consciousness  is  no  artificial  quality 
that  has  been  bred  into  human  nature,  but  an 
original  endowment,  a  primal  and  necessary  fac- 
tor of  human  nature. 

Now,  if  there  is  no  Infinite  One  upon  whom 
we  may  depend,  what  have  we  ?  Not  a  false 
and  vicious  habit  bred  into  man,  but  a  mock- 
ing delusion  as  one  of  the  original  elements 
of  his  being,  a  hideous  lie  woven  into  the  very 
texture  of  the  human  soul.  We  have  the  flower 
turning  its  pale  face  as  if  sunward,  and  only  a 
cold,  blank  nothingness  to  answer  its  sweet  voice 
of  worship  and  of  trust.  The  tides  lift  up  their 
mighty  masses,  as  if  in  the  enthusiasm  of  their 
loyalty  they  would  pour  out  their  very  being 
upon  a  mighty  orb,  and  as  their  answer  hear  only  a 
thin  and  hollow  voice  calling  out,  "  What  do  ye — 
there  is  nothing  here?"  We  have  the  homing 
instinct  of  the  bird,  and  no  home ! — the  faith  of 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  95 

the  child,  and  no  father! — the  unescapable  idea 
of  God,  and  no  God !  Surely,  if  not  worthy  of  a 
harder  name,  he  is  a  fool  who  thus  deals  with  the 
ineradicable  consciousness  of  the  human  soul, 
and  stamps  our  moral  constitution  a  contradiction 
and  a  lie. 

But  further  consider.  All  men  have  the  idea 
of  moral  quality.  They  distinguish  between  the 
right  and  the  wrong,  and  are  compelled  so  to  dis- 
tinguish. I  say  not  that  the  standard  of  right  is 
uniform.  It  is  not.  What  is  right  to  one  man  or 
a  nation  is  not  always  so  to  another  individual  or 
to  a  different  race.  But  the  sense  of  moral  qual- 
ity is  universal.  All  classes,  all  individuals  have 
their  right  and  their  wrong — divide  human  con- 
duct into  two  categories,  that  which  ought,  and 
that  which  ought  not  to  be  done.  And  this  is  all 
that  is  asked  for  here — this  universal  and  neces- 
sary idea  of  rightness,  of  obligation,  of  judgment 
condemnatory  or  approving,  upon  the  acts  that 
men  perform.  Consider,  first,  that  this  is  uni- 
versal. Consider,  secondly,  that  being  something 
which  has  not  been  bred  into  human  nature,  it  is 
also  something  which  cannot  be  bred  out  of 
human  nature.  A  false  education,  the  power  of 
a  bad  life,  the  influence  of  a  vicious  environment, 
are  able  to  oppose,  to  weaken,  to  silence  this  moral 


96  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

sense,  but  not  to  destroy  it.  Within  the  soul, 
enfeebled  and  silent  though  it  be,  it  continues  its 
existence,  and  in  many  ways  gives  evidence  of  its 
readiness  at  any  future  moment  to  reassert  itself 

This  moral  sense — natural,  universal,  appar- 
ently deathless — what  can  it  be  but  the  impress 
of  the  infinite  upon  the  finite ;  the  echo  of  a 
divine  voice  within  the  human  soul ;  the  sentence 
of  a  great  and  final  judge  in  ceaseless  articulation  ? 
It  is  nonsense  to  cry  out  '*  superstition."  As 
well  shout  "  parallelogram  !"  There  is  no  expla- 
nation in  this  word  superstition.  The  question 
remains.  How  does  it  happen  that  human  nature 
always  takes  on  this  particular  form  of  delusion  ? 
Neither  is  it  anything  more  than  pompous  ver- 
bosity to  call  this  moral  sense  an  eddy  of  the 
great  stream  of  tendency,  or  the  correlate  of  law. 
Law  without  a  lawgiver  is  a  misnomer  and  non- 
sense. There  never  was  and  there  never  can  be 
such  a  law.  Law  is  not  force,  but  only  a  method 
of  force,  having  power  neither  to  originate  nor  to 
execute  itself. 

Look  now  at  the  matter  as  it  stands.  A  sense 
within  man  says,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  right 
and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  wrong :  the  right 
ought  to  be  done,  and  the  wrong  ought  not  to  be 
done ;  do  the  right  and  it  shall  be  well  with  you ; 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  97 

do  the  wrong  and  you  shall  suffer.  These 
voices  are  coeval  with  the  race  of  man,  are  un- 
ceasing, undying  within  the  individual  soul.  What 
then  is  the  necessary  conclusion  ?  What  can  it 
be  but  this  ?  Man  is  under  law,  and  this  means 
man  responsible  to  a  lawgiver;  and  this  again 
means,  man  accountable  unto  God.  Yet  within 
the  heart,  in  which  echo  these  deathless  voices, 
there  has  been  heard  the  whisper,  "  No  God, 
No  God !  "  Why  this,  surely,  is  man  turning  upon 
himself!  This  is  the  free  agent  saying  with  his 
own  being — "Thou  lie  !"  This  is  a  manufactured 
whisper,  lifted  up  against  the  involuntary  and  con- 
tinuous testimony  of  all  the  moral  powers,  and 
surely  he  must  be  a  fool  who,  by  an  effort  of  the 
will,  gives  birth  and  continuance  and  respect  unto 
such  an  unnatural,  interjected,  and  evermore  re- 
puted falsehood. 

But  again,  you  may  catch  the  reflection  of  the 
scorn  of  the  text  from  the  surface  and  from  out 
the  depths  of  human  history.  Here  also  the  ne- 
cessity of  the  sermon  compels  brevity.  I  mention, 
first  of  all,  the  general  progress  of  the  realization 
of  righteousness — a  state  of  rightness — for  earth 
and  man.  Surely  this  gleams  from  the  bosom 
of  the  centuries.  The  march  of  what  we  know 
as  the  forces  of  civilization  has  been  an  onward 
7 


98  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

march.  See  this  in  the  growth  and  spread  of 
civil  and  reHgious  Hberty;  in  the  emancipation 
of  woman ;  in  the  upHfting  of  the  poor ;  in  the 
enlargement  of  the  common  man ;  in  the  count- 
less forms  of  charity,  which,  crystallizing  in 
most  beautiful  shapes,  fairly  bestud  the  crown 
of  earth,  as  stars  the  crown  of  night ;  in  the  ten 
thousand  forms  of  merciful  alleviation,  which  with 
ever-increasing  number  and  efficiency  are  work- 
ing for  the  amelioration  of  human  suffering,  and 
for  the  righting  of  human  wrong. 

Slow,  do  you  say  ?  I  care  not  to  argue  over 
this  word  "  slow."  We  are  but  creatures  of  a  day 
— yesterday  in  our  cradle  and  to-morrow  in  our 
grave — and  are  not,  perhaps,  good  judges  of  what 
is  slow  and  what  is  rapid,  in  the  progress  of  the 
forces  of  an  infinite  realm,  and  an  eternal  king- 
dom. All  that  I  desire  that  you  should  recognize 
and  admit  here,  is  the  power  which  is  working  for 
righteousness  in  this  world — the  tidal  force  which 
is  pushing  the  waters  of  a  regenerating  influence 
farther  and  still  farther  into  the  continent  of 
human  sorrow  and  of  human  sin.  "  Man  " — do 
you  cry  out?  Human  agency,  all  this  ?  Why  it 
originated  in  a  world  that  needed  it,  but  which  on 
account  of  this  need  could  not  and  did  not  desire 
it,     It    has  been   carried   forward    in   days   and 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  99 

through  centuries  where  no  love  of  it,  and  no 
purposeful  cooperation  with  it,  was  to  be  found  in 
heart  of  man  or  power  of  earth. 

I  mention,  secondly,  remarkable  interpositions 
in  human  history — patent  ab-extra  and  dominat- 
ing influences. 

"  To  the  Nile,  with  your  fore-doomed  child," 
spoke  the  voice  of  earth's  mightiest  Power  to  a 
poor  Hebrew  mother,  centuries  ago.  The  slave- 
mother  obeyed,  and  in  obeying  placed  her  child 
in  the  arms  of  Pharaoh's  daughter,  to  be  nourished 
as  Israel's  deliverer.  And  this  is  but  a  typical 
case.  Frequently  in  the  history  of  the  world 
have  human  wisdom  and  human  power  wrought 
out  the  confusion  and  overthrow  of  their  most 
dearly  cherished  plans.  Babels  have  been  re- 
solved upon  and  never  builded ;  persecutors  have 
scattered  the  seeds  of  the  life  that  was  to  be 
stamped  out;  human  slavery  has  been  extin- 
guished by  means  resolved  upon  by  the  most 
astute  political  wisdom  for  its  extension  and 
defense ;  the  wrath  of  man  has  praised,  not  him- 
self, but  an  unseen  power  which  stood  in  his 
pathway  with  a  flaming  sword. 

Besides  the  general  progress  of  the  world,  and 
this  supernatu rally  adroit  interposition  into  human 
history,  I  mention  one  conspicuous,  salient  fact. 


loo  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

viz.,  the  Christian  Church.  This  was  founded  by- 
one  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  carpenter's  son,  born  in 
a  stable  in  Bethlehem  of  Judaea,  poor,  despised, 
absolutely  destitute  of  every  species  of  human 
influence,  and  whose  life  was,  at  the  last,  swept 
from  the  earth's  surface  by  an  ignominious  death. 
This  religion  was  promulgated  by  a  band  of  twelve 
disciples,  all  but  one  of  whom  were  illiterate  men. 
It  has  nothing  in  it,  either  in  the  duties  that  it 
enjoins,  or  in  the  rewards  that  it  promises,  to 
allure  the  ambition  or  to  gratify  the  passions  of 
man. 

Yet  it  has  lived,  yet  it  has  grown,  shaping 
civilizations,  building  nations,  marshaling  the 
mightiest  forces  of  time.  Mohammedanism,  that 
flashed  upon  the  world  with  the  light  of  its 
drawn  sword,  now  grows  paler  and  paler  with  the 
increasing  dimness  of  this  sword,  and  even  with 
the  hope  of  its  sensual  paradise  is  now  able  to 
kindle  but  a  feeble  fire  of  loyalty  within  the  earth. 
But  nineteen  hundred  years  have  passed,  and  now 
no  longer  oriental,  but  occidental  as  well,  the 
Christian  Church  marches  in  the  van  of  the 
world's  progress,  and  is  incontestably  the  most 
vital,  the  most  extended,  the  most  modern,  the 
most  powerful  of  all  the  forces  that  to-day  are 
shaping  the  history  of  our  globe. 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  loi 

But  here  again  I  pause.  What  shall  we  say  ? 
That  the  past  centuries  cry  aloud  there  is  a  God? 
Yes,  surely  this.  But  this  is  a  weak  translation 
of  their  testimony.  Let  us  give  the  witness 
nobler,  worthier  voice.  As  its  gulf  stream  of 
progress,  distinctly  visible  through  all  the  cur- 
rents and  counter-currents  of  the  past,  cuts  its 
way  onward  with  a  force  which  no  human  power 
may  stay  or  divert;  as  its  ten  thousand  mar- 
velous conjunctions  and  issues  which  no  human 
intelligence  conceived  and  no  human  power 
wrought  out,  lift  themselves  up  in  luminous 
array,  history,  scorning  to  be  set  forth  as  the 
proof  of  a  necessary  and  self-evident  truth,  fairly 
thunders  forth  this  voice  :  "  The  man  who,  even  in 
his  heart,  dares  to  say,  no  God !  no  God ! — let 
him  be  called  a  fool  and  all  the  centuries  shall 
cry,  Amen." 

But  once  more. 

Let  us  justify  unto  ourselves  the  bold  language 
of  the  text  by  a  glance  unto  Him  who  is  the  cen- 
tral figure  among  all  time's  millions,  the  personal- 
ity round  whom  all  time's  centuries  revolve — 
Jesus  of  Nazareth, 

Take  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Was  such 
teaching  current,  was  it  possible,  in  the  day  and 
nation   in  which  Jesus  lived  ?     The  answer  can- 


I02  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

not  be  kept  back  or  changed  :  "  Never  man  spake 
like  this  man."  In  method — its  calm,  undoubt- 
ing,  yet  gentlest  dogmatism ;  in  the  elevation  of 
its  tone — its  moral  sublimity ;  in  its  majestic 
breadth — its  application  to  all  days  and  to  all  men 
— it  was  supernatural,  something  that  was  not 
born  of  that  age,  but  which  descended  upon  it, 
was  let  down  into  it. 

Then  look  unto  and  mark  the  breadth  of  Jesus* 
character  and  sympathies. 

Remember  that  He  belonged  to  the  narrowest, 
the  most  exclusive  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth ;  yet  in  His  sympathies  and  hopes  He  em- 
braced the  world,  and  all  His  words  and  doctrines 
are  current  coin  in  the  twentieth  century  and  in 
the  land  of  the  setting  sun.  Jesus  still  leads  in 
the  world's  progress.  The  carpenter's  Son  is, 
unto  this  day,  facile  princeps  among  the  world's 
great  reformers.  Can  any  thoughtful  mind  re- 
ceive this,  and  then  say,  "  Man  is  at  the  head — 
there  is  nothing  above  man  "? 

Consider  further  the  surpernatural  beauty  of 
His  character.  In  that  far-off,  narrow,  bigoted, 
selfish,  cruel  day,  behold  Him  walking  unspotted, 
stainless,  loving — the  Man  of  the  seamless  robe, 
set  not  only  above  that  day,  but  above  all  earth's 
days   and   men.     That  light,   that  radiance,   that 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  I03 

unmatched  beauty,  that  corona  of  unapproached 
goodness,  was  it  merely,  only  human  ?  As  well 
affirm  that  the  unsufferable  splendor  of  yonder 
sun  is  but  our  earth's  reflected  hght.  Oh,  no ! 
The  eyes  that  look  upon  the  Man  of  Palestine  be- 
hold a  brightness  more  than  human,  look  upon  a 
light  that  has  never  gilded  land  or  sea  in  all  the 
centuries  of  human  evolution.  He  is  the  mani- 
festation of  an  unseen  glory  ;  the  outraying  of 
an  infinite  excellence,  which  would  thus  become 
the  light  of  the  world,  the  light  and  the  life  of 
men. 

The  glance  within,  the  glance  without,  meet 
the  glint  of  the  text.  The  Psalmist  was  none  too 
bold,  his  scorn  none  too  incisive.  He  but  spoke 
the  plain  and  solemn  truth  when  he  said  he  is 
a  fool  who  says  within  his  heart.  No  God,  no 
God.  Here  let  me  affirm,  that  the  day  for 
calling  things  by  their  right  names  shall  not  al- 
ways be  postponed.  **  This  thing  was  not  done 
in  a  corner."  A  day  of  light  has  dawned  upon 
our  world  and  human  lives  are  passing  forward 
into  it.  Now  is  the  judgment  of  this  world,  and 
human  lives  are  haled  unto  this  judgment.  It  is 
a  day  of  God  in  which  we  live,  and  human  souls 
must  meet  Him  in  it.  There  is  no  escape  from 
this  issue  and  from  this  demonstration.     No  hu- 


I04  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

man  mind  may  ignore  or  belittle  the  primal  fact 
and  basal  truth  of  the  universe,  and  for  long 
pass  as  a  profound  thinker.  The  agnosticism 
which  is  virtual  atheism  shall  not  always  be  re- 
garded as  proof  presumptive  of  mental  breadth 
and  power.  The  living  soul  of  the  universe  shall 
break  forth  upon  the  human  spirit.  "A  God!" 
the  heavens  shall  cry.  "A  God !"  the  earth  reply. 
In  this  bursting  light  in  the  apocalypse  of  the  one 
all-inclusive  Reality,  in  this  blazing  forth  of  the 
Infinite,  whither  shall  run  or  in  what  dark  cor- 
ner hide,  the  puny,  presuming  creature-life,  which 
dared  to  wear  as  its  crown  that  know-nothingism 
which  is  the  scorn  of  the  mind's  highest  reach, 
and  the  contempt  of  the  soul's  sweetest  inspira- 
tion ?  Wherever  he  may  flee  or  wherever  hide, 
truth's  living  light  shall  dart  after  him  to  burn 
deep,  and  still  deeper  into  his  forehead  the  words 
of  this  merciless  condemnation  :  "  Professing  him- 
self to  be  wise,  this  man  became  a  fool." 

Only  one  word  more.  If  the  scorn  of  the  text 
justly  lies  against  the  one  who  says  in  his  heart, 
"  No  God,"  must  it  not  also  apply  and  with  cumu- 
lative force  to  the  man  who  in  and  by  his  life  says 
"  There  is  no  God  "  ?  This  is  a  form  of  the  athe- 
istic lie  which  is  upon  every  side  of  us.  Different 
classes  of  human  lives  are  continually  crying  it 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  io5 

into  our  ears.  Let  me  mention  some  of  these 
classes. 

First,  the  sensual  type — the  intemperate,  the 
licentious.  If  there  is  a  God,  He  must  abhor  this 
human  filth.  Therefore,  this  class,  the  impure, 
the  dissolute,  by  their  lives  are  shouting  out  the 
words,  "  No  God,  no  God." 

Secondly,  the  irreverent  type.  Human  lives 
for  twenty,  forty,  four  score  years  walk  the  won- 
drous earth-path  that  takes  its  way  over  the 
rounded  surface  of  a  flying  world  beneath  the 
mighty  arch  of  the  skies  ;  live  all  these  years 
girt  in  with  inconceivable  wonder  on  every 
hand ;  fairly  deluged  with  evidences  of  supernal 
power  and  immeasurable  wisdom,  and  drop  at 
length  into  the  darkness  of  the  grave,  non-wor- 
shipers, without  once  having  bowed  their  souls 
before  the  infinities  of  wisdom  and  power  that 
were  blazoned  forth  before  their  eyes.  Surely 
this  is  living  as  if  there  was  no  God. 

Thirdly,  the  self-centered,  the  utterly  selfish 
type.  Men  and  women  there  are  in  every  city, 
by  the  score,  to  whom  money  has  come  by  in- 
heritance, or  through  the  talents  bestowed  upon 
them,  or  the  opportunities  offered  to  them,  who 
are  spending  this  money,  and  all  this  money, 
upon    themselves,    and    only    upon    themselves. 


io6  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

They  build  the  new  and  spacious  mansion ; 
they  clothe  themselves  in  gorgeous  apparel ; 
they  take  the  summer  voyage  and  the  winter  ex- 
cursion, and  this  year  after  year,  just  as  if  there 
was  no  want  or  suffering  within  the  world — just  as 
if  they  did  not  belong  to  a  brotherhood  many  of 
whose  members  are  ignorant  and  poor  and  cold 
and  hungry.  Surely  again,  if  infinite  Love  de- 
lights in  the  service  of  her  needy  children,  this 
is  living  as  if  there  was  no  God.  Surely  again, 
life  here  is  one  bold,  shameless  word,  thrust  into 
the  ears  of  men,  and  into  the  face  of  heaven — this 
one,  bold,  shameless  word,  "  No  God !  no  God !" 

So  by  actions,  that  speak  louder  than  words,  are 
human  lives  shouting  upon  every  side  of  us  the 
affirmation  of  the  heart  against  which  the  text 
directs  its  scorn.  Men  ignore  duty.  When  the 
call  is  unto  worship,  they  do  not  bow.  When  the 
command  is  for  obedience,  they  lift  up  self-will  as 
their  highest  law.  So  are  men  everywhere,  in  the 
light  of  this  twentieth  century  of  Christ,  saying, 
not  in  heart-whispers,  but  in  the  outspoken  voice 
of  conduct,  "  No  God — no  God." 

Here,  by  the  deep,  full  heavens  into  which 
men  look  ;  by  the  sense  of  dependence  and  ac- 
countability that  stirs  within  the  human  heart ;  by 
the  luminous  path  of  human  progress  that  reaches 


THE  BIBLICAL  SPECIES  107 

through  the  centuries  unto  the  present  day ;  and 
by  the  beautiful  Christ  who  evermore  is  lifted  up 
before  human  eyes,  I  protest  against  this  atheism 
of  the  life,  and  prophesy  the  breaking  of  a  day, 
which  shall  turn  the  blush  of  shame  into  its  cheek, 
and  in  the  light  of  a  demonstration  which  shall 
justify  the  coronation,  shall  place  upon  its  head  a 
blacker  crown  than  that  which,  centuries  ago,  was 
fashioned  for  the  atheism  of  the  heart. 


VI 
SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES 


VI 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES 

'*  But  the  word  of  the  Lord  endureth  for  ever.    And  this  is  the 
word  which  by  the  gospel  is  preached  unto  you." — i  Peter  i  :  25. 

Both  those  who  applaud  and  those  who  deplore 
it,  will  do  well  to  remember  that  the  mental  rest- 
lessness of  the  present  day  is  no  new  thing  under 
the  sun.  If  you  will  turn  back  nineteen  hundred 
years,  you  will  hear  the  apostle  Paul  exhorting 
his  spiritual  son  in  these  words  :  **  Avoid  opposi- 
tions of  science,  falsely  so-called,  which  some  pro- 
fessing have  erred  from  the  faith."  Is  not  this  a 
very  good  photograph  of  many  a  twentieth-century 
man,  who  in  gaining  a  little  science  has  lost  all  his 
religion  ?  Behold  also  the  same  fact  illustrated  in 
one  of  the  freshest  crazes  of  our  day.  This  cult, 
which  announces  itself  as  the  incorporated  unity 
of  science  and  religion,  is  shown  to  be  very  near  of 
kin  to  a  strange  first-century  species,  for  we  hear 
the  same  great  apostle  warning  against  a  certain 
class  of  leaders  and  teachers  in  these  words : 
"  For  of  this  sort  are  they  which  creep  into  houses, 

and  lead  captive  silly  women."     Surely  the  adjec- 

zxi 


112  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

tive  here  is  not  an  inapt  description  of  those  in 
our  day  who  accept  as  Christian  Science  a  jumble 
that  ignores  the  imperatives  of  both  the  great  realms 
whose  names  are  invoked.  I  may  add  par- 
enthetically in  passing,  that  the  only  reason, 
doubtless,  why  the  apostle  made  this  character- 
ization of  one  sex  only,  was  because  the  leisure 
class  was  nonexistent  among  those  to  whom  he 
wrote,  and  that  the  men  of  that  day  avoided  the 
fate  of  some  of  their  twentieth-century  brothers 
by  being  out  at  their  daily  tasks,  saved,  as  so 
many  have  been  since  that  far-away  time,  by  the 
blessed  necessity  of  work. 

Then,  if  you  look  back  into  history  as  far  as 
unto  Athen's  pride  and  Athen's  glory,  you  will 
discover  a  large  class  who  "  spend  their  time  in 
nothing  else,  but  either  to  tell  or  to  hear  some 
new  thing."  Now  beyond  question  this  is  an  ac- 
curate description  of  a  certain  type  of  intellectual 
life  which  in  our  day  both  delights  and  distresses 
the  souls  of  the  children  of  men.  If,  therefore,  the 
passion  or  itching  for  novelty  is  a  proof  of  intel- 
lectuality, then  the  first  century  was  intellectual  as 
truly  as  the  twentieth,  and  if  this  craze  is  the  con- 
dition and  the  sign  of  progress,  then  those  who  lived 
in  Paul's  day  share  with  us  the  glory  of  furnishing 
this  condition  and  of  lifting  up  this  sign.     So  I  say 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  113 

unto  you  who  are  holding  on  to  faith  with  a  sad 
and  almost  despairing  courage,  because  of  the 
mental  restlessness  round  about  you,  that  this  is  no 
new  thing  upon  which  you  look ;  no  new  power  of 
temptation  that  you  feel ;  neither  does  it  betoken  a 
spiritual  cataclysm  or  the  end  of  faith  in  the  earth. 
I  also  say  unto  you  who  are  congratulating 
yourselves  upon  your  participation  in  the  present 
skepticism,  as  if  it  were  the  crown  of  earth's  last 
and  opening  century,  that  the  soil  of  every  gener- 
ation beneath  your  feet  is  full  of  the  dust  of  those 
who,  while  in  human  form,  were  "  ever  learning, 
and  never  able  to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth."  There  has  not  been  in  the  past  centuries 
such  a  wonderful  unlikeness  between  the  spirit  of 
earth's  different  days,  the  spirit  that  has  breathed 
upon  human  hearts  and  seduced  human  lives. 
There  are  more  minds  of  the  skeptical  type  than 
ever  before,  but  this  is  only  because  there  are 
more  people  in  the  world.  The  proportion  of 
restless  minds  and  unbelieving  souls,  I  apprehend, 
has  not  greatly  changed. 

But  whatever  the  spirit  of  the  day,  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  individual  remains,  for  it  is  the  spirit 
of  a  man,  and  not  of  a  day,  that  passes  forward 
unto  judgment.  If  this  man  gulps  down  whatever 
is  offered  him,  he  may  swallow  poison  whether  in 
8 


114  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

the  first  or  twentieth  century.  If  he  dances  to 
whatever  tune  is  played,  he  may  dance  into  hell 
from  the  floor  of  any  century  or  of  any  day. 

I  ask  your  attention  to  some  of  the  false  assump- 
tions bound  up  within  the  craze  for  novelty  in  the 
spiritual  realm — a  craze,  let  me  add,  as  old  as 
Athens  and  as  young  as  Buffalo. 

I.  The  first  of  these  assumptions  is  this  :  Modern 
progress  has  discredited  the  old  things  of  Chris- 
tian faith. 

The  progress  of  our  world  within  the  last  fifty 
years  is  unspeakably  marvelous.  No  human 
tongue  can  overspeak  or  overpraise  it.  If  only 
we  are  careful  to  note  the  field  in  which  it  has 
brought  forth  its  wonders,  we  shall  all  do  well  to 
join  most  enthusiastically  with  those  who  magnify 
and  glorify  the  present  day.  But  this  careful 
marking  of  the  field  of  modern-day  wonders  has 
not  always  been  done.  From  progress  in  one  or 
many  directions,  by  a  non  sequitur  progress  in 
every  direction  has  been  inferred.  So  it  has 
happened  that  even  in  the  spiritual  realm,  the  cry 
of  progress  has  been  taken  up  and  reechoed  until 
many  have  actually  come  to  believe  that  this  prog- 
ress has  sounded  the  death  knell  of  all  the  old 
things  of  Christian  faith.  But  indeed  nothing  is 
plainer   than  that  this    marvelous    and    worthily 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  115 

vaunted  progress  has  not  touched  one  of  these 
things. 

Let  me  prove  this  to  you  by  a  very  simple 
illustration.  Suppose  that  to-day  you  should 
be  called  to  the  bedside  of  a  dying  man.  Let 
churches  and  creeds  and  all  formal  religion 
now  drop  out  of  sight.  Let  the  case  be  simply 
this.  The  dying  man  is  a  friend  of  yours,  whom 
you  would  kindly  and  faithfully  serve.  Now 
as  you  stand  in  the  shadows  of  the  solemn  hour, 
with  his  hungry,  appealing  eyes  upon  you,  what 
new  word  of  twentieth-century  truth,  what  new 
watchword  of  twentieth-century  origin,  have  you 
for  your  passing  friend  ?  Will  you  tell  him  that 
he  is  but  meeting  the  inevitable  ?  Ah  !  he  knows 
this  without  your  saying  it,  and  besides,  any 
heathen  philosopher,  thousands  of  years  ago,  could 
have  told  him  this  much.  Will  you  go  further 
and  tell  him  that  the  power  in  whose  hands  he 
lies  is  a  power  of  love  ?  Is  this  all  you  have  for 
your  friend  ?  Why,  a  John  and  a  Paul  centuries 
ago  were  able  to  say  this  much  and  often  did  say 
it.  Will  you  go  still  further  and  say  unto  your 
friend,  "  There  is  a  divine  Saviour  who  will  walk 
with  you  through  the  dark  valley  "  ?  Why,  David, 
centuries  before  the  Christ,  could  and  did  say  as 
much  as  that.     Where  then  is  the  proof  of  progress 


ii6  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

in  the  spiritual  realm,  if  it  has  nothing  new  to  offer, 
if  it  is  silent  in  the  hour  when  human  love  would 
fain  serve  human  extremity? 

Or  let  the  form  of  the  illustration  be  a  little 
changed.  Suppose  that  with  the  deepening  shad- 
ows of  this  holy  day  the  angel  of  death  should 
suddenly  appear  beckoning  to  you.  I  will  make 
the  most  favorable  supposition  of  your  case. 
You  have,  say,  lived  in  a  circle  of  the  world's 
most  advanced  thought.  You  have  heard  and  read 
much  learnedly  critical  of  the  old  faith,  and  elo- 
quently extolling  the  new  and  broader  day  unto 
which  humanity  has  come.  As  you  have  listened 
to  their  words  of  glorification  and  repudiation, 
you  have  often  said  within  your  heart — some- 
times with  your  lips — "  Yes,  it  is  a  new  and  won- 
derful day !  The  old  things  of  Christian  faith 
have  fled  away  before  the  rising  and  spreading 
light !" 

So  you  have  lived  and  imagined  and  spoken. 
Now,  you  and  this  much  glorified  day  of  prog- 
ress meet  in  what  is  to  you  an  hour  of  sorest 
need,  when  you  feel  the  damp  dews  gathering  on 
your  brow,  and  the  human  heart  fainting  within 
your  breast.  Turn  now  to  your  new  and  broad 
day  of  light  to  receive  from  its  hand  its  especial 
gift  unto  your  necessity ! 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  117 

What  is  this  gift  ?  A  new  God  ?  No.  A  new 
map  of  the  death-valley  ?  No.  A  new  vision  of 
the  land  immortal  ?  No.  A  new  watchword  to 
ring  out  cheer  and  courage  in  the  black  darkness 
that  is  falling  upon  you  ?  No.  What  is  then  the 
gift  of  the  much  glorified  progress  unto  you  who 
have  so  often  spoken  its  praises  ?  An  interro- 
gation point — illuminated  it  may  be  by  the  hand 
of  culture — but  still  only  an  interrogation  point. 
This  is  the  gift  of  modern  progress  unto  your 
sore  need,  this  is  the  unction  with  which  she 
runs  unto  you — a  dying  man.  If  you  were 
called  upon  to  die  to-day,  you  would  have 
to  die  as  the  brute,  without  faith  and  without 
thought,  or  you  would  be  obliged  to  pillow 
your  fainting  spirit  upon  the  old  truths  of  the 
old  Bible — upon  the  Father  whom  Jesus  taught 
in  the  first  century,  upon  the  grace  of  that 
Saviour  whose  cross  is  nineteen  hundred  years 
old. 

Where  then  is  the  glory  or  the  fact  of  modern 
progress  in  the  spiritual  realm,  if  it  has  nothing 
new  in  the  way  of  knowledge,  or  comfort,  or 
courage,  or  cheer  for  a  man  in  the  hour  of  his 
supremest  need  ? 

Yet  human  voices  all  about  us  go  on  shout- 
ing progress,  as  if  all  the  old  things  of  religion 


ii8  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

had  been  discredited  and  abolished.  I  pray 
you  in  this  hour  put  your  fingers  in  your  ears, 
shut  out  the  noisy  and  popular  shouts  of  hu- 
manity's progress  long  enough  to  read  and  to 
learn  the  exact  truth  of  the  case.  There  has 
been  no  progress  in  the  spiritual  realm,  save  that 
of  word-emphasis.  Not  a  light  of  all  the  thou- 
sands that  sparkled  in  the  great  Columbian  Expo- 
sition threw  down  a  single  new  ray  upon  the  path 
by  which  a  man  goes  out  of  this  world.  There 
was  not  in  all  that  forest  of  inventions  a  single 
one  to  explain  life,  to  set  forth  God,  to  make  soft 
the  bed  of  death.  Among  all  the  exhibits  by 
which  the  French  Capital  celebrated  the  incoming 
of  the  twentieth  century,  there  was  not  one  from 
that  world  into  which  human  lives  are  pouring  at 
the  rate  of  one  hundred  thousand  with  every 
passing  day.  In  the  third  great  Exposition, 
the  rainbow  city — fair  as  the  new  Jerusalem  de- 
scending out  of  heaven,  which,  as  if  at  the  wand 
of  some  supernal  power,  sprang  into  illumined 
and  inimitable  beauty  upon  the  shores  of  Lake 
Erie — the  record  was  the  same.  Upon  life,  spirit, 
God,  the  world  to  come,  nothing  new — no  new  ex- 
hibit. The  secret  and  the  spirit  of  Niagara  blos- 
somed into  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand 
lights,  but  the  spirit  and  the  secret  of  that  world 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  119 

unto  which  sweep  the  millions  of  earth  made  no 
new  showing  of  themselves. 

The  old  things  of  religion,  discredited,  super- 
seded, abolished  !  Why,  not  one  of  them  has 
been  touched !  About  God  and  soul-life,  about 
the  first  great  cause  and  the  end  which  waits ; 
about  evil,  its  entrance  into  the  world  and 
its  future  history;  concerning  Jesus  Christ  and 
His  proffered  aid  to  man ;  concerning  the  future 
life  and  the  condition  of  human  immortality — 
about  all  these  things  we  know  no  more  than  did 
the  disciples  of  Paul  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 
What  Macaulay  wrote  years  ago  still  remains 
true — a  first-century  man  with  a  Bible  in  his  hand 
is  the  equal  of  the  nineteenth-century  man,  so  far 
as  spiritual  knowledge  is  concerned.  All  the 
logomachies  that  have  raged  round  religion's 
great  verities  have  left  them  just  where  they  were 
on  the  day  that  the  Isle  of  Patmos  saw  the 
venerable  seer  affix  the  memorable  seal.  There 
have  been  speculations  numberless,  but  no  new 
discoveries  ;  an  endless  succession  of  discussion 
but  no  new  knowledge.  The  intuition  of  God, 
the  origin  and  destiny  of  man,  the  vision  of  the 
Christ,  the  consciousness  of  sin,  the  intimation 
of  immortality — these  fundamentals  remain  as 
they  were  in  the  days  of  Paul,  and  the  assump- 


120  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

tion  that  modern  progress  has  invahdated  them, 
or  brought  in  any  substitute  for  them,  is  a  great 
delusion  wrought  into  the  pride  and  folly  of  the 
Athenian  mind. 

II.  A  second  false  assumption  wrought  into 
the  craze  for  spiritual  novelty  is  this :  Mental 
restlessness  is  in  itself  so  much  progress. 

There  are  many  who  seem  to  think  that  just  be- 
cause they  have  cut  loose  from  the  old  anchorage 
of  faith,  therefore  they  have  been  thinking,  and 
thinking  to  a  purpose.  But  is  this  true  ?  Is  mo- 
tion necessarily  progress  ?  Is  activity  necessarily 
profitable  activity  ?  Is  drifting  the  same  as  mak- 
ing a  voyage  ?  Haul  up  the  anchor,  cut  the  hawser, 
and  the  vessel  will  begin  to  move,  it  is  true. 
But  what  of  this?  Such  a  vessel,  as  likely  as 
not,  will  whirl  round  and  round  in  an  eddy  of 
wave  and  foam ;  she  will  float  out  with  the  tide  or 
in  with  the  tide  ;  but  in  either  case  there  is  no 
progress,  nothing  but  an  idle  swash  and  profitless 
churning  of  the  waters. 

And  the  moral  world  holds  many  such  crafts 
within  it.  Derelicts  they  are,  going  nowhere 
themselves  and  only  endangering  the  progress  of 
the  soul  that  is  seeking  some  desired  haven. 
Lift  a  wagon  wheel  from  the  ground  and  you 
may  spin  it  round   and  round,  but  it  will  go  no 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  121 

whither.  It  may  revolve  with  great  demonstra- 
tion, and  startle  the  onlookers  with  the  smoke  of 
its  heated  axle,  but  all  this  means  only  so  much 
useless  wear  and  tear.  There  is  in  it  all  neither 
profit  nor  promise.  So  in  the  spiritual  world, 
when  human  minds  are  lifted  up  from  the  solid 
ground  of  revealed  truth.  They  may  make  a 
great  whirring  with  their  *'  Lo  !  here,  lo  !  there  !" 
but  all  the  same  they  will  make  no  progress.  Air 
plants  they  are,  the  victims  of  self-levitation,  feeding 
upon  the  thin  nutriment  of  their  own  guesses; 
windmills  beating  the  air  exhaled  from  their  own 
lungs;  and  their  record  in  our  day  and  in  all  days 
makes  it  very  clear  that  mental  activity  is  not 
necessarily  profitable  activity,  that  mental  drifting 
is  not  one  and  the  same  thing  with  spiritual 
progress. 

Suppose  a  man  has  closed  or  thrown  away  the 
Bible,  or  that  under  the  influence  of  modern  criti- 
cism has  taken  it  down  from  its  high  and  solitary 
preeminence.  But  the  Bible  did  not  invent  sin,  or 
sorrow,  or  suffering,  or  death,  and  after  it  has 
been  discarded  these  things  will  remain,  and  the 
soul  of  man  will  still  need  some  authoritative 
voice  upon  them.  Say  that  a  human  hand  has  put 
away  the  Christ;  but  still  the  human  life  remains 
consciously  weak,  with  darkness  all  around  it  and 


122  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

greater  darkness  before  it.  Will  not  this  life  need 
some  hope,  some  helper  to  take  the  place  of  the 
rejected  Saviour  ? 

No,  no  !  Mental  restlessness,  spiritual  drifting,— 
these  are  not  necessarily  so  much  progress.  Be- 
cause the  old  has  been  cast  away,  this  does  not 
mean  that  something  better  has  been  found  to 
take  its  place,  and  the  assumption  that  it  does  is 
a  baleful  error  hiding  within  the  glorified  inertia 
of  the  Athenian  mind. 

III.  A  third  false  assumption  bound  up  in  the 
passion  for  spiritual  novelty  is  this  :  Skepticism  is 
the  highest  form  of  intellectual  life.  The  word 
culture — spelled  with  a  big  C — has  proved  itself 
in  our  day  and  in  all  days  a  veritable  Moloch 
unto  which  many  poor  souls  have  passed  both  the 
intuitions  of  their  spirits  and  the  precious  word 
of  God  which  was  within  their  hands.  I  can- 
not think  that  I  overstate  the  truth  when  I 
add,  that  the  sensational  demonstration  that  at- 
tends upon  skepticism  has  had  something  to  do 
in  bringing  about  this  strange  and  sad  state  of 
things.  We  live,  you  know,  in  a  newspaper  day. 
The  world  has  had  its  age  of  stone,  and  of  brass, 
and  now  it  has  its  newspaper  day — also  one  of 
brass.  You  well  know  what  prominence  this 
species  of  world  activity  gives  to  the  unusual,  the 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  123 

abnormal.  One  mad  dog  running  down  the  street, 
snapping  at  everything  in  its  way,  is  worth  more 
to  a  newspaper  than  a  hundred  beautiful  and  noble 
specimens  of  the  same  species  that  are  not  rabid. 
One  runaway  horse,  smashing  things  as  he  goes, 
is  preferred  above  the  thousands  of  the  gentle 
type,  which  in  the  beauty  and  quietness  of  useful 
service  do  the  work  of  the  whole  city.  So  one 
professor,  kicking  over  the  traces  and  threatening 
the  safety  of  the  whole  theological  establishment, 
is  given  larger  place  in  the  daily  press  than  all 
the  remaining  members  of  the  Faculty. 

This  sure  expectation  of  fame,  it  cannot  well 
be  doubted,  has  seduced  a  few  at  the  front,  and 
these  have  drawn  after  them  a  large  crowd  of 
the  uneducated,  the  unstable,  and  the  irreverent, 
who  cease  not  to  split  their  throats  with  the  cry, 
"  Bravo !  bravo  !  great  is  he  that  cometh  in  the 
name  of  the  critic.  What  a  scholar  is  this  who  is 
not  afraid  to  lay  his  hands  upon  that  which  all 
the  Christian  centuries  have  regarded  as  sacred  ! 
No  back  number  this  one,  but  an  up-to-date  man." 

So  the  professor's  egoism  is  gratified,  and  so 
there  flock  to  hear  the  preacher  those  who  would 
not  go  near  him  were  he  emphasizing  instead  of 
criticizing  the  Bible.  So  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  you   cannot   throw  a  stone  to-day  without 


124  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

hitting  some  one,  now  an  editor,  now  a  pro- 
fessor, and  now  a  preacher,  whom  the  crowd  of 
the  Adullamites  have  canonized  for  his  free  and 
irreverent  handhng  of  the  old  things  of  faith  and 
hope. 

But  criticism  is  always  easy.  Destruction  is  a 
much  simpler  matter  than  construction.  It  took 
a  genius  to  rear  the  Ephesian  dome,  but  any 
fool  could  apply  the  torch  to  it.  Rejection,  too, 
is  not  necessarily  the  sign  of  strength.  When 
the  stomach  throws  up  its  food,  this  is  not  al- 
ways because  it  is  strong,  but  as  often  because 
it  is  weak.  Neither  is  rejection  always  the  sign 
of  benevolence.  A  soured,  or  envious,  or  cynical 
soul,  under  the  guise  of  liberality  and  public  ser- 
vice, may  do  the  throwing  out  here.  Only  a  few 
great  souls — you  can  count  them  on  your  fingers 
— have  ever  constructed  any  faith  for  mankind, 
but  the  woods  and  the  plains  are  full  of  com- 
moners, who  have  snapped  at,  and  carped  at,  and 
spit  upon  the  priceless  treasures  of  the  soul's  inspi- 
ration and  the  soul's  hope.  Only  a  small  minority 
of  the  world's  millions  have  endured  as  seeing  Him 
who  is  invisible,  but  the  crust  of  the  earth  is 
thick  with  the  ashes,  and  the  surface  of  the  earth  is 
black  with  the  shadows,  of  those  who  have  smirked 
and  grinned  in  the  face  of  supernal  reality,  who,  as 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  125 

the  browsing  ox  upon  the  glories  of  the  sunset 
sky,  have  turned  their  superciHous  gaze  upon  the 
immensities  and  the  eternities,  only  to  say,  "  I 
see  nothing  there — there  is  nothing  there."  Be- 
lieve me,  my  fellow-men,  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world  to  let  go  of  supersensual  realities.  The 
world  laughs  at  the  mental  grasp  here — sin  be- 
numbs the  fingers  and  the  devil  unclasps  them. 
There  are  few  of  the  modern  world's  millionaires 
who  remain  humble  and  spiritual ;  there  is  not  a 
large  proportion  of  politicians  who  see  in  the 
Ten  Commandments  anything  more  than  an  iri- 
descent dream :  there  is  not  a  surprisingly  large 
number  of  the  children  of  leisure,  of  fashion,  and 
of  wealth  who  walk  before  God  in  truth  and 
purity  and  simplicity.  No !  such  faith  calls  for 
ceaseless  vigilance  :  for  a  strenuous  denial  of  the 
lower  forms  of  appetite  and  self-will,  for  unfail- 
ing spiritual  aspiration,  and  the  assumption  that 
the  inertia  of  the  human  mind  that  spends  all 
its  time  in  hearing  or  in  telling  some  new  thing 
is  a  sure  sign  of  mental  strength  and  high  cul- 
ture is  one  of  the  silliest  delusions  that  the  father 
of  lies  has  ever  palmed  off  upon  a  human  soul, 
or  with  which  he  has  ever  befogged  an  earth- 
born  day. 

IV.  But  there  Is  a  fourth  false  assumption  that 


126  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

hides  within  the  craze  for  novelty  in  the  spiritual 
realm,  to  which,  in  closing,  I  must  briefly  advert. 
It  is  this :  Man  has  so  changed,  the  world  has  so 
changed  as  to  render  the  word  of  the  old  gos- 
pel insufficient,  inapplicable,  and  obsolete. 

The  constituent  thought  here  is,  that  Jesus  did 
not  anticipate  the  character  and  extent  of  modern 
progress.  When  He  spoke  to  the  world  He  did 
not  anticipate  the  scientific  development  that  was 
to  come :  did  not  foresee  the  day  when  men 
would  wing  their  words  and  propel  their  bodies 
with  the  lightning  of  heaven :  had  no  vision  of 
the  coming  man  who  was  to  be  the  possessor 
of  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  :  had  no  pre- 
vision of  the  day  of  universal  education,  of  the 
multiform  discoveries  and  the  new  knowledge 
which  were  to  crown  in  glory  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. He  spoke  a  word  true  enough  and  good 
enough  for  the  then  little  world  of  man — but  for 
the  new  and  broader  day  unto  which  humanity 
has  come,  there  must  be  a  new  and  a  broader 
gospel. 

This,  you  will  note,  is  a  very  bold  assumption. 
It  is  nothing  less  than  to  charge  Jesus  the  Christ 
with  provincialism ;  to  affirm  that  He  was  the 
creature  of  the  day  in  which  He  lived,  not 
broader    than    this    day,    not    seeing   beyond  it. 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  127 

But  bold  as  the  insinuation  is,  it  is  as  fallacious 
as  it  is  bold. 

Man  has  not  so  greatly  changed  since  the  day 
of  Jesus  and  of  Paul.  Even  his  body  has  not 
come  unto  any  novelty  of  life-function.  The  cir- 
culation of  the  blood,  the  process  of  digestion,  the 
action  of  the  nervous  system,  these  are  exactly 
what  they  were  nineteen  centuries  ago.  The  hu- 
man body  now  takes  its  food  from  a  table  very 
unlike  that  which  was  spread  in  the  first  century, 
but  its  nourishment  and  growth  are  by  the  same 
laws,  maturity  comes  in  the  same  manner,  and 
death  follows  in  the  same  old  way.  In  the  spir- 
itual man  also  there  has  been  no  deep  or  radical 
change. 

Take  the  last  and  most  characteristic  product 
here — the  man  of  the  twentieth  century.  A  thor- 
ough-going man  of  the  world  let  him  be,  a  multi- 
millionaire, if  you  please,  member  of  a  dozen  clubs 
and  of  a  hundred  corporations,  owner  of  a  rail- 
road that  spans  a  continent  and  of  a  steamship 
line  that  bridges  the  great  ocean,  with  material 
relations  and  civic  responsibilities  and  commu- 
nal functions  of  which  the  first  century  never 
dreamed !  As  you  look  upon  this  wonderful 
product  of  to-day,  maybe  you  are  ready  to  ex- 
claim :  "  What  a  different  being  from  the  simple 


128  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

fisherman,  from  the  rude  shepherd  to  whom 
Jesus  spoke  and  with  whom  Jesus  consorted ! 
The  old  gospel  will  not  do  for  this  new  man." 
But  in  reality  the  difference  that  amazes  you 
here  is  only  in  accidentals,  only  in  evanescent 
externals,  only  in  the  man's  clothes,  whether  these 
clothes  be  the  garments  that  cover  his  body,  or 
the  palace  in  which  he  lives,  or  the  multitudinous 
trappings  of  sense  that  jingle  along  his  earthly 
pathway.  In  a  single  hour  all  these  distinguish- 
ing accidents  shall  drop  from  the  twentieth-century 
life,  and  it  will  show  itself  unto  the  world  and 
unto  the  universe  as  a  weak,  suffering,  dying  man! 
Only  this  and  nothing  more.  Only  this,  and  in 
this  ultimate  reduction  and  final  analysis,  the  won- 
derful product  of  earth's  last  day  will  reproduce 
without  the  change  of  a  single  feature  the  man  of 
the  first  century.  He  will  draw  out  of  a  room  of 
greater  money  value  than  a  whole  province  of 
Palestine  in  Jesus'  day,  but  he  will  draw  out  of 
this  palatial  environment  in  as  simple  a  form,  as 
empty-handed,  as  naked,  as  helpless  as  twenty 
centuries  ago  the  human  life  drew  out  of  the 
shepherd's  tent  or  the  fisherman's  hut.  How 
superficial,  how  foolish  then  the  assumption  that 
this  modern  twentieth-century  conglomerate,  in 
the    center   of  which    is  the    unchanged    human 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  129 

spirit,  needs  any  new  word,  any  new  gospel  from 
the  unchanging  God !  As  if  there  must  be  a  new 
evangel  for  the  larger  pile  of  goods ;  for  the  longer 
bank  account ;  for  the  railway ;  for  the  steamship 
line !     As  if  these  things  were  a  part  of  the  man ! 

Receive  in  conclusion,  I  pray  you,  these  two 
inferential  and  applicatory  thoughts. 

First,  the  pitiableness  of  the  hysteric  craze  for 
spiritual  novelty.  Pitiable  for  two  reasons.  First, 
because  it  is  the  attempt  of  the  human  intellect, 
usurping  the  prerogatives  of  intuition  and  of  reve- 
lation, to  make  discovery  in  a  realm  which  is 
hopelessly  beyond  its  reach.  The  man  might  as 
well  say,  *'  I  am  looking  into  the  fauna  and  flora 
of  Neptune,"  as  to  say  "  I  am  investigating  the 
problems  of  evil,  of  spirit,  of  God,  of  immortality." 
Here  also  professing  himself  to  be  wise,  the  man 
quickly  becomes,  and  most  sadly,  a  fool. 

Pitiable  also  is  this  craze,  for  it  is  the  denial  to 
the  poor  human  heart  amid  the  contradictions, 
and  troubles,  and  sorrows  of  the  present  life,  of  the 
comfort  and  inspiration  of  accepted  and  unchang- 
ing truth. 

The  second  application  of  this  whole  subject 
is  this :  Reason's  high  obligation  and  faith's  fine 
opportunity. 

Our  day  confuses  man's  temporal  functions 
9 


I30  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

with  his  immortal  life.  It  is  as  if  into  the  pres- 
ence of  the  sick  man  there  should  gather  a  com- 
pany of  his  friends  to  discuss  what  uniform  he 
shall  wear,  what  business  he  shall  take  up,  what 
social  or  civic  responsibilities  he  shall  assume — 
and  in  the  meantime  the  man  is  dying !  So  those 
who  are  wise  above  that  which  is  written,  "  the 
foolish  prophets,  that  follow  their  own  spirit,  and 
have  seen  nothing,"  gather  themselves  into  the 
spiritual  sanctuary  to  discuss  social  economics ; 
to  formulate  theories  concerning  spiritual  myster- 
ies ;  to  guess  at  what  the  world's  crowd  shall  be 
and  do !  And  this  while  the  human  life  through 
sorrow,  through  suffering,  and  through  death  is 
moving  forward  unto  judgment ! 

There  is  but  one  great  question  that  spiritual 
truth  needs  to  answer  in  time's  day,  and  this  is 
the  redemption,  the  safety  of  time's  one  great 
entity — the  individual  man.  This  secured,  earth 
will  be  cared  for,  and  heaven  will  not  lose  its  own. 
The  truth  which  conditions  this  great  issue  has 
been  given  unto  the  world,  and  is  as  unchanging 
as  the  immutable  God  or  His  eternal  throne : 
**  This  is  life  eternal,  to  know  Thee,  the  only 
true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  Thou  hast 
sent." 

"  The  word  of  the  Lord  endureth  forever.    And 


SPIRITUAL  NOVELTIES  131 

this  is  the  word  which  by  the  gospel  is  preached 
unto  you." 

My  fellow-men,  you  who  are  immortal  citizens 
of  the  kingdom  of  God,  if  you  have  any  respect 
for  yourselves,  for  your  worthiness  and  your  dig- 
nity; if  you  have  any  reverence  for  the  beauty 
and  majesty  and  glory  of  the  infinite  realm,  I 
beseech  you,  that  with  a  beautiful  contempt  you 
spurn  from  you  the  foolish  and  ephemeral  spiritual 
novelties  of  the  Athenian  or  the  Yankee  mind, 
and  bow  with  all  reverence  in  the  presence  of  the 
unchanging  word  that  conditions  the  redemption 
of  man  and  the  regeneration  of  the  world.  So 
preserving  both  self-respect  and  faith  in  Him 
who  is  the  God  of  things  as  they  are,  through 
Him  who  is  time's  apocalypse  of  this  reality,  you 
shall  have  cause  to  render  thankful  praises  while 
thought  or  being  lasts  or  immortality  endures. 


VII 

THE   SIFTING  OF  THE   SENSUOUS 

LIFE 


VII 

THE  SIFTING  OF  THE    SENSUOUS  LIFE 

"And  Jacob  was  left  alone ;  and  there  wrestled  a  man  with  him 
until  the  breaking  of  the  day." — Gen.  xxxii  :  24, 

Jacob  was  a  smart,  shrewd,  successful  man.  If 
there  had  been  newspapers  in  that  far-off  day,  he 
would  have  been  referred  to  as  our  rising  young 
townsman,  our  eminent  citizen.  He  was  smart 
enough,  with  the  aid  of  his  wily  mother,  to  entrap 
and  to  rob  his  brother  Esau,  and  when  driven 
from  home  by  this  sharp  practice  he  was  shrewd 
enough  to  so  manage  things  as  to  increase  his 
own  holdings  at  the  expense  of  his  trusting  and 
generous  uncle.  And  now  with  all  the  property 
that  he  had  accumulated  while  in  residence  with 
this  uncle — with  all  his  oxen  and  asses  and  flocks, 
with  his  men-servants  and  women-servants — he 
turns  his  face  toward  his  old  home,  turns  from  the 
scenes  of  his  business  success  and  fortune-getting, 
to  run  into  the  hour  which  should  thoroughly 
sift  his  inward  life,  which  should  make  him  afraid 
and  ashamed  of  that  which  he  had  come  to  regard 
as  his  success,  his  fortune,  and  his  glory. 

i35 


136  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

Let  us  note  how  this  crucial  hour  breaks  upon 
the  head  of  such  a  Hfe  :  First  of  all,  in  the  revela- 
tion of  the  reality,  the  nearness,  the  overwhelming 
importance  of  an  unseen  world  to  which  the 
human  life  most  truly  and  everlastingly  belongs. 
We  live  upon  the  rounded  surface  of  a  flying  ball, 
out  from  which  in  any  direction  space  sweeps 
away  in  distances  unmeasured  and  unmeasurable. 
In  a  vast  universe,  to  which  even  imagination  can 
set  no  bounds,  is  plunged  and  wheels  forward  the 
world  upon  which  we  have  our  home  and  all  that 
we  call  ours.  This  rimless  reservoir,  these  depths, 
these  heights,  these  stretches  of  space  are  but 
as  vacancy  to  many  of  the  hours  of  the  human 
life.  Men  see  nothing  in  them ;  they  feel  nothing 
from  them.  The  channels  of  the  senses  flood  the 
mind  and  fill  the  heart,  and  outside  of  the  territory 
which  these  drain  the  human  life  penetrates  not 
at  all. 

The  sensuous  spirit,  the  fleshly  life,  walks  in  the 
presence  of  the  vast  infinite,  and  knows  no  con- 
nection with  it.  Its  world,  its  universe,  is  the 
office,  the  shop,  the  home.  The  pleasure  which 
allures,  the  gain  which  is  sought,  the  ambition 
which  dominates — the  human  lives  that  pass  and 
repass,  that  laugh  and  cry,  that  suffer  and  die — 
this  is  reality,  this  is  the  all  to  many  an  hour  of 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE    137 

the  human  life.  Ask  the  man  in  such  an  hour 
what  he  sees  in  yonder  depths,  and  your  answer 
shall  be  a  stare,  or  a  sneer,  or  a  pitying  smile. 
Yes !  but  over  the  head  of  this  sensuous  life  may 
at  any  time  break  an  hour  which  shall  bring  the 
sentient,  thrilling  spirit  into  vital  connection  with 
that  which  now  seems  emptiness  and  void.  A  few 
hours  ago  his  family,  his  servants,  his  cattle  seemed 
to  Jacob  to  fill  the  spaces  by  Jabbok's  ford.  Now 
these  all  are  gone,  and  yet  they  leave  not  emptiness 
behind  them.  There  is  that  remaining  with  which 
Jacob  may  have  communion — with  which  he  may, 
must,  wrestle.  Jabbok's  ford  is  still  tenanted.  So 
sweep  away  from  the  world-absorbed  soul  its 
environment  of  the  material,  so  isolate  the  sensu- 
ous spirit,  and  out  of  the  desert  of  sense  so  created 
reality  shall  speak  unto  the  human  life,  and  unseen 
Being  hold  mysterious  communion  with  the  soli- 
tary human  spirit. 

The  hour  of  danger  even  more  surely  and 
more  vividly  than  the  hour  of  loneliness  makes 
the  same  revelation.  Behold  the  supplanter  by 
Jabbok's  ford !  It  is  an  hour  in  which  everything 
that  he  holds  dear — the  safety  of  his  family,  the 
lives  of  his  dependents,  the  fruit  of  twenty  years 
of  toil — all  are  at  stake.  Suddenly,  as  the  sand- 
cloud  of  the   desert  rises  up  in  the  path  of  the 


138  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

caravan,  there  is  lifted  up  before  Jacob  the  wrath- 
ful cloud  of  four  hundred  armed  men,  and  in  the 
midst  of  this  cloud,  and  glaring  out  upon  him  from 
its  blackness,  the  face  of  his  wronged  brother 
Esau.  What  shall  be  the  result  ?  Shall  the  angry- 
cloud  tear  a  path  of  ruin  through  his  possessions  ? 
Shall  a  cruel  death  sweep  from  before  his  very- 
eyes  the  forms  of  his  loved  ones  ?  The  hour  is 
critical  and  the  smart  and  successful  man  trembles 
before  it.  No  sooner  is  he  alone  in  the  presence 
of  his  danger  than  the  void  about  him  grows 
tremulous,  palpitating  with  life,  and  he  himself  is 
wrestling  with  that  which  to  a  lighter  hour  had 
been  vacancy  and  nothingness.  So  ever  does  the 
hour  of  sudden  and  alarming  peril  breathe  life 
into  the  spaces  round  about  the  human  spirit.  It 
strikes  reality  into  emptiness ;  form  into  void ; 
and  gives  life  unto  that  which  an  hour  before 
was  a  solitude. 

It  was  but  a  moment  ago  when  the  man  upon  the 
top  of  the  ascending  wall  saw  nothing  but  bricks 
and  mortar  and  human  forms,  heard  nothing  but 
the  shouts  of  the  workmen,  the  ring  of  the  trowels, 
and  the  creaking  of  the  derrick,  when  suddenly, 
by  the  slip  of  his  foot  he  falls,  and  between  the 
scaffold  and  the  ground  all  this  sense  world  dis- 
appears, and  an  unseen  world  becomes  real  and 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE     139 

living,  the  only  real  and  living  world  before  the 
eyes  of  the  falling  man.  A  single  step  has 
taken  him  out  of  one  world  into  another!  A 
moment  of  peril  has  made  vacancy  alive,  con- 
verted void  into  fullness,  nothingness  into  the 
only  reality ! 

The  lights  flash  from  the  cabin,  and  music's 
sweet  sounds  fill  all  its  spaces.  Here  and  there, 
in  groups  of  two  and  three,  the  passengers  prom- 
enade the  deck.  Ask  these  moving  forms  con- 
cerning reality !  Old  ocean's  depths,  the  solid 
vessel  upon  which  they  stand,  yonder  distant  shore 
and  waiting  friends — these  things  fill  human  minds, 
these  things  move  human  hearts. 

Interrogate  these  moving  forms.  What  of 
this  vast  concave  that  arches  you  in,  these  en- 
veloping spaces  through  which  you  drive  onward  ? 
Empty  stretches,  vacancy,  nothingness.  So  comes 
your  answer  from  the  heart  of  the  sense-life.  But 
hark !  The  bell  rings  out  the  note  of  danger ! 
There  is  a  sudden  and  terrible  crash.  The  ship 
reels  backward,  and  through  the  awful  gash  of 
the  collision  the  black  waters  are  pouring !  What 
now,  where  now,  is  reality  ?  Ah !  yonder  solid 
shore,  and  waiting  friends,  and  ocean's  sweeping 
waves,  and  iron  rib,  and  oaken  plank  are  seen,  are 
felt  no  longer,  and    human  spirits    are  speaking 


I40  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

into,  actually  praying  into  that  which  a  half-hour 
ago  was  emptiness  and  void. 

So  the  hour  of  sudden  danger  waves  its  wand 
over  vacancy,  and  forthwith  this  vacancy  lives  and 
is  all  that  does  live  to  the  consciousness  of  the 
changed  man,  and  the  vision  of  the  thrilled  human 
spirit.  When  peril  hangs  above  it,  Jabbok's  soli- 
tude begins  to  breathe,  to  assume  form,  and  the 
lonely  Jacob,  before  he  is  aware,  is  wrestling 
with  it. 

Oh  !  ye  who  along  what  ye  call  your  solid  streets, 
and  underneath  the  shadow  of  your  unyielding 
brick  and  granite  fronts,  and  before  your  iron 
safes,  do  daily  move  and  stand  and  bow ;  Oh ! 
ye  who  imagine  yourselves  thus  dealing  with  the 
only  realities  of  life — I  beg  you  now  to  stop  and 
remember  how  soon  all  these  things  may  become 
as  airy  nothings  before  your  changed  vision.  To- 
day stop  to  remember  how  quickly  all  reality  may 
be  transferred  to  the  realm  of  the  invisible,  filled 
with  that  which  to  your  present,  shallow,  sensuous 
hour  seems  only  so  much  empty  space. 

But  advancing  a  step,  let  me  say  that  the 
crucial  hour  breaks  upon  the  sensuous  human  life 
in  the  revelation  of  a  Power  hitherto  unseen  and 
unfelt — a  Power  who  is  King  of  the  invisible 
realm.  Lord  and  Judge  of  the  human  soul. 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE     141 

It  is  difficult  to  define  personality  in  so  many 
words.  Yet  each  of  us  knows  what  it  means, 
understands  well  enough  how  it  is  separated  from 
being  of  any  other  kind.  Though  the  infant  life 
lies  a  helpless  and  half-formed  thing  in  the 
mother's  arms,  yet  you  start  not  back  at  the 
sound  of  your  voice,  when  to  this  humble,  almost 
inanimate,  existence  you  apply  the  personal  pro- 
noun. You  say  of  the  unmoving,  scarcely  breath- 
ing, life,  he,  she,  and  when  in  words  to  which  you 
expect  no  reply  you  make  the  direct  address  it  is 
still  in  the  form  and  by  means  of  the  same  per- 
sonal pronoun.  But  so  you  do  not  address 
Niagara,  or  the  shining  star  above  your  head,  or 
the  mighty  ocean,  or  the  beautiful  rose.  To  none 
of  these  do  you  say,  "  Thou,"  as  if  an  answer 
might  come  from  it  to  you.  So  in  simplest  defi- 
nition personality  is  that  which  we  address  with 
the  use  of  the  personal  pronoun.  It  is  life  of  our 
kind — that  which  may  answer  back  to  our  voice 
— a  thinking,  feeling  entity,  separated  from  all 
other  being  by  the  individual  consciousness  and 
presided  over  by  the  mysterious  force  of  the  free 
and  self-directing  will. 

And  in  this  form,  always  and  for  evermore,  does 
the  crucial  hour  of  the  sense,  life  photograph  the 
reality  of  the   unseen  world.     With  no  wild,  un- 


142  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

answering  law,  with  no  nameless  unpersonal  force 
did  Jacob  wrestle  by  Jabbok's  ford.  Throughout 
that  long  eventful  night,  throughout  all  the  hours 
of  that  mysterious  and  fateful  conflict,  it  was  per- 
son meeting  with  person.  "  There  wrestled  a 
man  with  him  until  the  breaking  of  the  day." 

"  He  said  unto  him.  What  is  thy  name  ?"  "  Jacob 
asked  him,  and  said.  Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  thy 
name."  Thy  name — thy  name,  so  the  wrestlers 
spoke,  so  they  asked  of  each  other.  Thou,  me — 
a  meeting  of  persons,  a  battle  of  individual  and 
independent  wills,  a  conflict  of  personal  forces  the 
night  through. 

So  ever  is  it  in  the  crucial  hour  that  breaks 
over  the  head  of  the  sense  life. 

The  house  is  deathly  still,  and  stealing  out  of 
the  room  in  which  the  mute  forms  of  the  broken 
family  circle  sit  together,  you  softly  climb  the 
stairs  and  stand  before  the  dead  body  of  your 
boy.  If  now  you  kneel  by  the  side  of  the  un- 
moving  form, — and  in  such  an  hour  the  unseen 
world  will  be  so  real  to  you  and  so  near  that  you 
will  instinctively  do  this — if  so  you  bow  in  wor- 
ship, the  words  of  your  heart  will  form  themselves 
in  no  address  to  impersonal  law  or  force.  By  the 
side  of  your  dead  child,  before  such  an  altar,  you 
will  not  speak  to  say,  you  will  not  cry  out :  "  Oh, 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE    143 

stream  of  tendency,  have  pity  upon  me.  Oh, 
power  that  makes  for  righteousness,  comfort  me  ! 
Oh,  Great  First  Cause,  give  me  strength  for  my 
weakness,  Hght  for  my  darkness  and  peace  for 
my  aching  heart."  Not  so  will  your  soul  speak  in 
such  a  presence  and  in  such  an  hour,  but  instinc- 
tively it  will  break  forth  in  the  cry,  "  O  God, 
have  pity,  have  pity.  I  did  not  recognize  the 
Christ  Child  in  the  one  whom  Thou  didst  send 
until  Thou  hadst  withdrawn  Thy  gift.  Forgive, 
forgive  my  blindness,  my  earthliness,  my  brutish 
sensuousness,  for  now  my  heart  aches  with  a 
measureless  grief,  and  I  am  Thy  child." 

So  also  in  the  hour  of  danger.  Between  the 
masthead  and  the  deck,  between  the  crashing  in 
of  the  bullet  and  the  outspeeding  of  the  life,  it  is 
unto  a  person  that  the  human  life  cries  out.  All 
hours  of  deepest  conflict,  all  hours  of  danger,  of 
sorrow,  and  of  loss,  all  hours  that  break  in  sifting 
power  upon  the  head  of  the  sense-life  show  the 
reality  of  the  unseen  world  unto  the  human  spirit 
in  the  form  of  a  person.  The  common,  the  in- 
stinctive ejaculation  of  the  human  soul  the  world 
over  and  time  through  in  critical  and  decisive 
hours  is  in  the  words,  "  O  my  God  !" 

Are  not  such  hours  as  these  as  profitable 
for  instruction  in  spiritual  mystery;  are  they  not 


144  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

as  reliable  in  their  teaching  as  are  the  hours  of 
mirthful  jollity,  or  boastful  pride,  or  over- weening 
smartness,  or  festering  sin  ?  Nay,  are  they  not 
better?  Do  they  not  stand  nearer  to,  do  they 
not  see  deeper  into,  do  not  they  give  truer  voice, 
fuller  expression  to  the  unchanging  and  infinite 
reality? 

What  then,  do  you  ask,  shall  be  said  of  those 
who  from  out  the  study,  the  laboratory,  and  the 
philosophical  hall  give  out  periphrastic  and 
euphemistic  abstractions  to  take  the  place  of  this 
old  concrete  word,  "  God  "  ?  This,  I  think,  must  be 
said  first  of  all.  Skillful  rhetoricians  are  these 
men,  who  under  the  inspiration  of  literary  taste 
would  fain  produce  some  new  and  shining 
phrases ;  effeminate  sons  of  sturdy  fathers  often 
assiduously  devoting  themselves  to  the  high 
potencies  of  a  spiritual  homeopathy ;  men  play- 
ing with  phrases;  intoxicated  with  a  sense  of  their 
own  originality ;  quite  beside  their  true  selves ; 
artificial,  childishly  vain — unspiritual.  No  doubt 
it  is  true  that  the  class  whose  work  it  is  to  put 
together  words  for  the  pages  of  the  review,  or  for 
the  almost  equally  ephemeral  page  of  the  book, 
do  tire  of  the  old  nomenclature.  There  is,  as  the 
great  essayist,  Foster,  pointed  out  long  ago,  an 
aversion   on  the  part  of  men  of  literary  taste  to 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE    145 

evangelical  religion  and  if  to  the  thing  itself,  then 
of  course  and  also  an  aversion  to  the  stereotyped 
phrases  by  which  it  is  commonly  expressed. 
Then  coupled  with  this  aversion  is  a  strange  liking 
for  abstract  generalities.  These  commit  the  writer 
to  nothing,  and  they  have  on  account  of  their 
very  indistinctness  an  impressive  echo  that  is 
quite  pleasing  to  the  literary  and  philosophical 
ear.  Even  Carlyle — rugged  prophet  as  he  was — 
falls  a  victim  to  the  power  of  this  seduction,  and 
on  his  pages  are  found  such  sonorous  phrases  as 
the  "  Silences,"  the  "  Immensities,"  the  "  Infinities," 
the  "  Eternities."  But  at  the  best,  even  taking  in 
their  magniloquent  echoes,  these  phrases  are  not 
significant  generalizations.  At  their  best  they  are 
only  glittering  generalities,  which  the  human  life 
in  its  deeper  hours  puts  from  it,  even  as  the  starv- 
ing man  might  thrust  from  him  shining  beads 
and  colored  glass,  crying  out,  **  What  need  have 
I  of  such  paltry  things  as  these ! " 

Behold  this  written  out  in  letters  of  light  and 
fire  in  countless  human  experiences.  The  book 
rests,  dust-covered,  on  the  library  shelf;  the  yellow 
pages  of  the  magazine  are  going  through  the  mill 
again,  while  the  author  of  them  both  is  lying 
upon  the  bed  of  his  solitary  and  judging  hour — 

his  heart  sobbing  out  the  words,  **  My  God !  My 
10. 


146  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

God  !"  The  magazine  in  the  rag-picker's  bag,  the 
book  forgotten,  and  the  man  piteously  crying  out 
unto  that  which  he  has  proved  again  and  again 
can  neither  hear  nor  answer ! 

By  the  side  of  Jabbok's  ford,  underneath  the 
black  cloud  of  danger,  at  the  end  of  its  power, 
revealed  unto  itself,  the  solitary  human  spirit  calls 
not  unto  the  Silences  or  the  Eternities,  wrestles 
not  with  cause,  or  law,  or  potency.  In  the  crucial 
judging,  sifting  hour,  when  the  unseen  becomes 
real  and  visible  unto  the  human  life,  it  ever  strikes 
itself  into  the  form  of  a  person,  and  for  this  per- 
sonal Entity  there  is  no  other  name  so  good  as  the 
old  name  God — the  Infinite  One — the  Father 
who  is  in  heaven.  Not  only  so,  not  only  is  there 
no  other  word  so  good  as  this  one,  but  this  is  also 
true  in  the  deep  and  trying  hour,  when  the  hu- 
man spirit,  emancipated  from  the  shallow  and 
make-believe  conventions  of  earth,  feels  itself  face 
to  face  with  Everlasting  Reality,  it  never  thinks 
of  naming  this  Reality  by  any  other  name  than 
religion's  old  word,  God. 

But  again  let  me  ask  you  to  observe  that 
the  hour  which  sifts  the  sensuous  life  breaks  upon 
the  head  of  this  life  in  the  exposure  of  its  false 
beauty,  in  the  withering  of  its  false  strength,  and 
in  the  blotting  out  of  its  false  glory. 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE     147 

"And  there  wrestled  a  Man  with  Jacob  until 
the  breaking  of  the  day.  And  He  touched  the 
hollow  of  his  thigh,  and  Jacob's  thigh  was  out 
of  joint  as  he  wrestled  with  Him." 

Long  years  before  this,  in  their  wrestling  match, 
Jacob  was  able  to  throw  his  brother  Esau.  In  his 
conflict  with  Laban  also  he  came  off  victorious. 
In  both  of  these  encounters  he  won,  as  our  world 
uses  this  word.  But  now,  at  length,  he  has  come 
unto  an  hour  when  the  glory  of  these  successes 
withers  as  the  gorgeous  sunflower  might  wither 
under  the  breath  of  the  blast  furnace  :  when  the 
heretofore  winning  Jacob  beholds  his  glory  as  so 
much  shame  and  all  his  meretricious  strength  in 
a  moment  converted  into  unbeautiful  and  helpless 
weakness.  No  chance  for  supplanting  here.  No 
opportunity  for  trickery  here.  No  possibility  of 
going  in  to  win  upon  the  low  qualities  of  smart- 
ness and  shrewdness  and  cunning.  The  very 
qualities  that  before  had  been  his  confidence  and 
his  success  are  now  his  weakness  and  his  fear. 

So,  unto  the  hour  of  scorching  and  shriveling, 
moves  every  life  of  sense,  every  life  that  has  not 
by  thought  and  purpose  penetrated  unto  that 
within  the  veil,  every  life  that  has  failed  to  con- 
nect its  progress,  its  success  and  its  hope  with  the 
everlasting  principle  of  the   Divine  righteousness. 


148  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

Take  the  wild  Indian  of  the  wigwam,  and  set 
him  in  the  Philosophical  Hall :  how  helpless  he 
seems !  how  pitiably  deficient !  how  despicably- 
deformed  !  His  fleetness  of  foot,  his  sharpness  of 
vision,  his  strength  of  limb — all  his  savage  glory 
are  in  a  moment  turned  into  the  contemptible.  His 
glistening  beads,  his  gaudy  feathers,  his  girdle  of 
scalps — all  these,  his  former  crown  and  glory,  are 
now  a  shame  unto  him.  He  has  been  lifted  up 
into  a  light  that  makes  a  mock  of  these  bar- 
baric ornaments.  He  stands  judged,  condemned, 
in  the  presence  of  that  which  is  better  and  nobler — 
silenced  and  ashamed  before  the  power  of  a  higher 
life.  At  the  touch  of  this  life,  his  strength 
shrinks  to  weakness;  in  the  presence  of  its  su- 
perior beauty,  his  glory  withers  into  shame.  So 
Jacob  the  wily  one,  Jacob  the  supplanter,  came 
into  contact  with  divine  and  beauteous  reality, 
and  at  once  his  strength  is  out  of  joint  and  such 
an  exposure  and  such  a  withering  await  every 
human  life  which  has  not  measured  its  success 
by  the  standard  of  the  wider  and  deeper  and 
eternal  world,  which  is  not  in  consciousness  a 
subject  of  the  everlasting  kingdom  of  God. 

Imagine  the  red  Indian  before  the  philosophers. 
Imagine  the  low-browed  pugilist  in  the  salon  of 
culture    and  beauty.     Imagine  the  able,  shrewd, 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE     149 

cunning  man  of  the  world  lifted  up  into  the  at- 
mosphere of  holiness,  into  the  presence  of  the 
throne  that  is  always  white,  into  the  face  of  the 
beautiful  God  !  Oh,  what  shrinking  will  such  an 
hour  witness  !  How  its  white  light  will  search 
out  and  expose  the  false  beauty  !  How  its  dart- 
ing fires  will  scarify  the  brute  strength  and  con- 
sume the  shameful  glory!  The  man  has  been 
shrewd,  versatile,  crafty  unto  the  outer  semblance 
of  success,  and  the  world  has  glorified  his 
career.  He  has  won  in  virtue  of  the  lower  qual- 
ities of  his  being,  and  he  has  heard  himself 
praised  for  these,  as  for  a  great  success.  Now 
all  at  once  he  is  plunged  into  an  hour  where  all 
these  qualities  show  rather  as  the  debasement 
of  his  manhood,  and  all  these  victories  as  so 
many  defeats  of  the  immortal  life !  Hitherto  he 
has  fought  with  his  antagonists,  using  the  weapons 
of  a  brutish  cunning  or  a  devilish  duplicity,  and 
now  in  a  moment  he  faces  an  antagonist  who  is 
Light  and  in  whom  is  no  darkness  at  all.  He 
has  for  long  received  the  honor  that  cometh  from 
men.  His  neighbors  have  said,  "  First  citizen," 
and  taken  off  their  hats ;  the  world  has  cried 
"  Millionaire,"  and  bowed  down  !  He  himself  has 
come  to  regard  his  life  a  great  success.  Now 
suddenly  he  passes  into  an  hour  when  his  money 


I50  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

lifts  itself  up  as  the  price  for  which  he  has  bar- 
tered things  worth  more  than  money,  and  when 
his  earthly  honors  disclose  themselves  as  so  many 
weeds  of  mourning  wrapped  round  a  wizened 
and  deformed  spirit. 

So  the  hour  of  judgment  breaks  upon  men  ;  so  it 
sifts  the  low  smartness  and  the  unworthy  success. 
Oh,  what  withering  of  the  false  bigness  will  there 
be  in  this  hour !  Self-revealed,  ashamed,  self- 
contemning,  the  man  will  shrink  into  himself, 
and  as  a  hunted  felon  dart  his  terrified  gaze 
in  every  direction  for  the  corner  in  which  he  may 
hide  from  the  apocalypse  of  the  worthy  life  and 
the  true  glory. 

Read  once  more  in  the  incident  of  the  text 
that  the  crucial  hour  as  it  breaks  upon  the  head 
of  the  sensuous  life  holds  within  it  the  possibility 
of  a  new  birth — the  birth  into  a  new  and  a  higher 
life. 

Out  of  his  mysterious  wrestling  Jacob  comes 
limping,  but  he  comes  forth  as  a  limping  prince 
— his  name  no  longer  Jacob,  the  supplanter,  but 
Israel,  spiritual  potentate  in  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Upon  shrunken  strength  he  leans,  no 
longer  smart  enough  to  steal  from  his  brother,  or 
to  circumvent  his  uncle,  but  all  this  shrinking 
is  of  the  false  bigness,  and    it    is    into  a  weak- 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE     151 

ness,  which  from  the  higher  level  shows  as 
strength.  At  last  Jacob  is  a  true  man,  at  last 
his  life  is  real.  All  artifice,  all  sham,  all  duplic- 
ity, all  low  cunning  have  disappeared,  consumed 
by  the  fire  of  that  awful  and  glorious  hour  in 
which  he  met  with  God.  Into  this  hour  Jacob 
went  a  smart,  shrewd,  successful  commoner,  and 
out  of  it  he  comes  a  true,  fair,  nobleman.  Pros- 
trate in  the  darkness  at  Jabbok's  ford — conquered 
by  the  might  of  his  loving  Antagonist — he  has 
heard  the  voice  of  this  same  Antagonist  saying 
unto  him,  "  Stand  up,  Sir  Knight,"  and  he  has 
arisen  into  place  and  honor  and  glory  in  the 
family  of  the  great  King.  Forth  from  his  cru- 
cial hour  he  comes  limping — but  with  a  royal 
limp. 

So  our  world  of  sham  and  unreality  is  full  of 
princes,  whose  finest  decoration  is  their  limping 
gait.  Their  outward  life  has  been  maimed,  but 
their  inward  life  has  been  ennobled.  On  shrunken 
sinew  walk  they  for  the  remainder  of  their  earthly 
days,  but  from  the  high  table  land  of  immortality 
God  and  angels  behold  in  their  gait  the  carriage 
of  the  Prince.  Into  the  dark  night  of  fear  and  of 
loss,  into  the  darker  hour  of  sorrow  and  bereave- 
ment they  have  gone,  and,  after  long  wrestling 
hours   with    the    living    and  the  true  One,  they 


152  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

themselves  have  come  forth  true,  and  ahve  with 
the  life  of  God.  The  sifting  hour  of  the  deep 
experience  has  smitten  them  down  into  the  con- 
sciousness of  weakness,  into  the  consciousness 
of  shame,  but  their  consternation  and  their  suffer- 
ing have  been  the  travail  pains  of  a  new  birth. 
Unto  each  one  of  them  also  has  the  great  King 
spoken  to  say,  "Stand  up.  Sir  Knight,"  and  they 
have  stood  up — out  of  their  low  smartness, 
out  of  their  shrewd  self-seeking,  out  of  their 
self-complacency,  out  of  the  mire  of  their  suc- 
cess— stood  up  new  men  and  true  !  Oh,  ye  who 
have  so  won,  even  through  your  defeat,  re- 
joice in  this  defeat.  Oh,  ye  who  have  wrestled 
in  the  dark  hours  unto  your  utter  exhaustion, 
give  thanks  for  the  surrender  that  was  forced 
upon  you  !  Oh,  ye  who  with  limping  gait  and 
straitened  outward  life  walk  forward  unto  the 
eternities,  rejoice  in  this,  that  the  inward  life 
has  been  purified,  that  the  spirit  has  been  en- 
nobled, and  that  in  God's  sight  ye  do  now  walk 
as  princes. 

So,  in  outline,  is  drawn  in  the  incident  of  the 
text,  the  hour  which  is  to  sift  the  sensuous  life. 
Not  altogether  fascinating  is  it,  I  know,  in  many  of 
our  earthly,  animal  days  to  contemplate  it.  We 
are  such  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood,  so  wrapped 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE     153 

round  with  the  material  and  the  sensuous,  so 
dominated  by  the  conventions  of  a  disordered 
world  that  we  shrink  back  from  the  nakedness,  the 
exposure  threatened  by  unpitying  reality  and  the 
unveiled  God.  But  since  we  do  not  stay  here,  but 
move  swiftly  forward  into  the  sifting  hour,  it  would 
seem  the  part  of  wisdom  for  us,  as  it  is  the  gra- 
cious opportunity  of  the  present  day,  to  prepare 
ourselves  for  it. 

This  can  be  done,  first  of  all,  by  familiarizing 
ourselves  with  the  idea  of  the  world  to  come. 
Definite  knowledge  of  facts,  I  know,  is  not  possi- 
ble here,  but  spiritual  impression  is.  If  you 
will  walk  with  earth's  new  man  from  the  hour 
in  which,  as  with  the  innocent  wonder  of  child- 
hood, He  lifts  up  the  interrogation,  "  Wist  ye  not 
that  I  must  be  about  My  Father's  business  ?" 
until  in  the  gloaming  of  His  earthly  day  you  shall 
hear  Him  exclaim,  "  I  have  finished  the  work  which 
Thou  gavest  Me  to  do,"  you  will  have  impressed 
upon  you  the  fact  that  this  is  not  the  only  world 
to  which  man  belongs  ;  you  will  come  to  feel  the 
powers  of  an  unseen  world — to  taste  these  powers, 
even  as  the  river  tastes  the  saltness  of  the  sea,  far 
up  its  earthly  banks. 

Then  there  is  a  second  element  of  preparation 
within  your  reach,   even  acquaintance  with  God. 


154  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

Here  again  I  know  human  vision  is  blind  and  hu- 
man reason  is  impotent.  But  the  Divine  Man 
here  again  is  Helper  and  Saviour.  "  No  man  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time ;  the  only  begotten  Son, 
which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath  de- 
clared Him."  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word, 
and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was 
God.  .  .  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  us."  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath 
seen  the  Father," 

So  if  you  will  become  familiar  with  the  Christ — 
and  this  is  your  privilege — you  will  not  be  afraid 
nor  ashamed  when  you  are  swept  forward  into 
the  presence  of  Him,  upon  whose  image,  manifest 
in  human  form,  you  have  learned  to  look. 

Then  there  remains  for  you  this  third  step  of 
preparation,  the  keeping  ever  before  you  in 
plainest  view,  the  true  standard  of  the  real  beauty 
and  the  true  glory  of  rational  life.  Here  also 
He,  who  is  the  Head  of  the  new  humanity,  waits 
upon  your  necessity,  offers  Himself  unto  you  as 
Saviour.  The  world  has  never  found  any  **  fault 
in  Him."  He  is  the  Model,  the  perfect  Man.  He 
will  show  you,  if  you  are  willing  to  look,  if  you 
wish  to  learn  what  you  ought  to  be,  and  what  you 
may  become. 

These  three  ideas,  Christ  the  revealer  of  God, 


THE  SIFTING  OF  THE  SENSUOUS  LIFE    155 

Christ  the  minister  plenipotentiary  from  the  world 
that  is  to  come  unto  the  world  that  now  is,  Christ 
the  image  of  the  true  man — by  the  power  of  these 
great  truths,  faithfully  used,  you  may  fashion  for 
yourself  a  life  which  no  night  of  earth's  darkness, 
and  no  hour  of  future  surprise,  shall  have  power 
to  terrify,  to  wound,  or  to  rob. 


VIII 
TWO   GREAT   DEEPS 


VIII 

TWO   GREAT   DEEPS 
"  Thy  judgments  are  a  great  deep." — PsALM  xxxvi  :  6. 

In  the  language  of  the  Bible,  the  judgments 
of  God  are  the  purposes  of  the  Divine  will  taking 
shape  in  human  history,  the  self-manifestations  of 
the  Infinite  under  the  conditions  of  time  and 
space.  The  great  deep,  also  another  common 
Bible  phrase,  is  the  wide  blue  sea,  mightiest  of 
God's  earthly  creatures,  that  forever  rolls  and 
tosses  within  the  sight  of  man.  So  by  the  words 
of  the  text  are  we  to-day  invited  to  take  our  stand 
upon  its  beach,  and,  while  we  look  out  upon  the 
great  ocean,  learn  something  of  Him  of  whom  it 
is  declared,  "  Thy  way  is  in  the  sea,  and  Thy 
path  in  the  great  waters." 

The  first  and  most  evident  attribute  of  the  great 
deep  is  its  unresting  action,  the  never-ceasing 
character  of  its  motion.  At  times,  when  spending 
the  sacred  day  in  the  country,  it  has  seemed  to 
me  as  if  the  quiet  of  earth's  sweet  rest  day  had 
fallen  upon  nature  as  well  as  upon  the  souls  of 

159 


i6o  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

men.  The  breezes  seemed  to  stir  the  leaves  with 
a  gentler  motion.  The  supporting  accompani- 
ment of  animate  life,  which,  like  the  ticking  of  the 
clock,  is  unheard  in  common  hours,  came  into 
notice,  and  seemed  a  special  orchestra  prepared 
with  tender  and  minor  strains  for  the  worship  of 
the  solemn  hours,  and  even  the  chattering  brooks, 
like  noisy  children  who  have  been  rebuked  by  the 
failing  of  a  sudden  calm  upon  their  elders  about 
them,  seemed  to  moderate  their  joy  and  glide  in 
softer  murmurs  over  the  ripples  in  their  gleaming 
pathway.  But  the  ocean  knows  no  Sabbath,  no 
rest  day,  no  hour  of  peaceful  quiet.  It  is  the 
troubled  sea  that  cannot  rest.  When  you  lay 
yourself  down  upon  your  bed  at  night  the  plash- 
ing of  the  waves  upon  the  beach  tells  you  that 
there  is  no  sleep  for  them,  and  if  you  awaken  at 
dead  of  night  the  deep  undertone  of  their  motion 
reports  itself  at  once  to  your  opening  ears,  and  in 
the  morning,  as  you  stand  upon  the  new-made 
beach,  you  read  the  proof  that  there  is  no  period 
of  inaction  in  the  life  of  the  great  deep ;  that  while 
earth  and  man  may  rest  and  sleep,  the  wide  blue 
sea,  like  its  great  Creator,  fainteth  not,  neither  is 
weary.  Now,  as  summer  suns  have  begun  to 
wheel  their  higher  circles  in  the  heavens,  throwing 
down  their  furnace  flames  upon  the  head  of  man 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  i6i 

and  beast,  there  shall  flock  to  old  ocean's  side  a 
great  company  of  those  who  for  another  year  have 
worked  and  rested,  have  lain  down  and  risen  up, 
and  the  first  sight  that  they  shall  look  upon  as 
the  whitened  beach  lifts  itself  again  into  view  will 
be  the  advancing  and  receding  waves,  the  same 
unchanged  motions,  the  same  undiminished  rest- 
lessness of  the  years  before.  Long  after  these 
children  of  the  summer  excursion  have  visited  the 
ocean  for  the  last  time,  and  have  laid  themselves 
down  in  the  silence  of  the  sleep  that  knows  no 
waking,  the  same  waves  that  they  are  looking 
upon  to-day  shall  come  and  go,  shall  hurry  in 
and  hurry  out,  shall  toss  and  sport  themselves  in 
the  same  unceasing  and  unwearied  movements 
with  which  they  greeted  and  pleased  the  eyes  and 
the  ears  of  visitors  of  other  days  and  of  past  gen- 
erations. 

Turn  now  from  the  symbol  unto  that  which  is 
symbolized,  from  the  great  deep  unto  Him  who 
holds  its  mighty  masses  in  the  hollow  of  His 
hand.  The  Infinite  mind  and  will  are  necessarily 
and  eternally  active.  In  the  realm  of  creation,  of 
providence,  and  of  grace  there  is  no  resting  of  the 
purpose  of  Deity,  no  slumbering  of  the  judgments 
of  the  Almighty.  Individual  development,  world- 
change,   world-progress,  the   onsweeping   life  of 

IX 


i62  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

universal  nature,  these  all  proclaim  the  ceaseless 
activity,  the  continuous  self-manifestation  of  Him, 
who  is  in  all,  and  through  all,  the  alone  fountain 
of  all  force,  the  impulse  of  all  movement,  the  soul 
of  all  life.  Consider  this  activity  as  it  has  been 
revealed  unto  the  children  of  men  in  this  earth 
province  of  the  universal  empire. 

Under  the  brooding  of  the  Divine  Spirit  upon 
the  formless  waste,  the  waters  that  were  under  the 
firmament  drew  themselves  away  from  the  waters 
which  were  above  the  firmament — then  earth's 
fire-mist  grew  dense,  then  denser  still ;  then  light 
flashed  in  upon  the  darkness,  order  spoke  unto 
confusion — five  mighty  days  lifted  up  their  finished 
work  while  they  listened  for  the  acceptance  and 
approval  of  the  Divine  Architect,  given  out  in  the 
words,  *'  It  is  very  good  "  ;  and  then  a  sixth  day 
came — also  one  of  the  great  thousand-year  days 
of  the  Lord, — and  the  earth  rolled  forth  into  space 
the  finished  dwelling-place  of  man  ! 

Since  that  far-off  period  of  creation's  power 
there  has  been  no  stopping,  no  rest  within  this 
earth  of  ours.  By  day  and  by  night,  around  its 
own  axis,  around  the  sun,  and  with  sun  and  planet 
and  satellite  forward  around  some  far-off  and  mys- 
terious center,  it  has  wheeled  onward  through  the 
centuries — through  the  centuries  which  are  only 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  163 

so  many  pendulum  beats  of  its  mighty  life,  and 
inconceivable  orbit.  Upon  its  surface,  too,  all  is 
motion,  and  change,  and  progress.  Its  seasons 
flow  onward  in  a  current  that  knows  no  slacken- 
ing. Its  rivers  run  to  the  sea  with  a  music  that 
never  intermits.  Its  clouds  are  yearly  transformed 
into  bread  for  its  millions  of  pilgrim-pensioners. 
Its  valleys  are  being  filled  ;  its  mountains  leveled. 
Men  are  multiplying  upon  its  surface  and 
within  its  graves.  Knowledge  is  increasing ;  civil- 
ization is  advancing ;  art  and  science  are  conquer- 
ing new  fields  and  winning  new  trophies — the  past 
is  evermore  forgotten,  and  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  some  mighty  power,  our  earth  and  all  that 
it  contains  goes  spinning  down  the  grooves  of 
time,  taking  hold  of  an  orbit  that  no  human  eye 
may  see  and  no  human  intelligence  may  measure. 
So  also  and  as  wonderful  are  the  activity  and 
progress  of  the  moral  realm.  In  the  soundless 
depths  of  a  past  eternity  the  purpose  of  redemption 
was  fashioned.  Time  brought  forth  the  theater 
of  its  manifestation,  and  the  object  of  its  won- 
drous power.  Since  the  first  day  of  human  his- 
tory, where  has  there  been  shown  any  sign  of  end 
or  rest  ?  The  gloaming  of  the  morning  has  ever 
been  lifting  itself  up  into  the  light  of  a  more  per- 
fect day.     Promise    has    ripened  into  fulfillment ; 


i64  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

type  has  been  lost  in  anti-type.  The  church  of  a 
family  has  widened  into  the  church  of  a  nation, 
and  this  through  centuries  of  discipline  and  of 
growth  has  broadened  into  the  church  of  a  world, 
and  this  world-church,  with  the  growth  of  cen- 
turies in  her  stature,  lifts  herself  up  before  us  to- 
day, the  dew  of  youth  sparkling  upon  her  beauti- 
ful garments  and  the  light  of  hope  flushing  her 
fair  face  as  she  turns  her  eyes  upon  the  misty 
stretches  of  humanity's  mighty  future.  There  is 
no  weakening  of  her  faith,  no  wasting  of  her  power. 
Daily  is  she  laying  the  hand  of  her  guidance  upon 
some  new  world-force,  stirring  the  hearts  of  men 
with  the  influence  of  some  higher  motive  and  some 
sweeter  hope  ;  by  one  incline  after  another  lifting 
the  world  up  unto  higher  and  yet  higher  table- 
lands of  thought,  of  purpose,  and  of  being. 
Through  the  shaking  of  the  nations,  through  and 
over  the  oppositions  of  men,  by  the  sweet  breath 
of  human  love,  by  the  harsh  and  strident  gale 
of  human  wrath,  is  the  ever-enlarging  hope 
of  the  new  humanity  which  is  in  and  through 
Christ  Jesus,  being  swept  forward,  and  of  rest, 
of  harbor,  of  anchorage  there  is  yet  no  sign. 
What  are  all  these  movements,  these  changes, 
this  progress,  but  the  self-manifestation  of  the 
Infinite,  the  birth  into  time,  and  human  history  of 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  165 

the  purposes  of  His  immutable  and  omnipotent 
will. 

Yet  what  is  our  earth  ?  A  point  in  infinite 
space.  What  is  time  with  its  circling  ages  ?  A 
point  in  infinite  duration.  All  the  wonders,  all  the 
changes,  the  multiplied,  the  progressive,  the  end- 
less movements  of  human  history,  what  are  these 
all  but  the  outworking,  the  manifestation  of  the 
infinite  purpose  in  a  moment  of  eternity  and  in 
point  of  immensity  ?  Oh,  the  glories  which  must 
rise  before  the  eye  that  can  sweep  the  universe  of 
space  and  duration  !  Oh,  the  waves  which  before 
such  a  vision  must  lift  themselves  up  and  sweep 
across  the  mighty  expanse  !  Oh,  the  sublime,  the 
awful  gulf  current  which  such  observation  must 
note,  setting  its  course  toward,  cutting  its  way 
through  the  ages  "  unto  that  far-off  divine  event  to 
which  the  whole  creation  moves  "  !  Oh,  the  over- 
whelming glory  of  the  final  end,  forever  unap- 
proached,  forever  unapproachable  !  Oh,  the  glory 
of  the  ever-living  God!  "  Thy  judgments  are  a 
great  deep." 

But  the  ocean  is  not  only  unceasing  in  its 
activity,  but  it  is  sublimely  irresistible  in  the 
mightiness  of  its  power. 

Even  when  the  sea  is  placid,  our  minds  instinc- 
tively clothe    it   with    majestic    and    measureless 


i66  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

force.  In  the  low  plash  of  the  sunlit  waves  we 
hear  disguised  the  same  voice  that  boomed  artil- 
lery-like through  the  night  time  of  fear.  We 
watch  the  ocean,  even  in  its  hours  of  play,  with 
much  the  same  feeling  that  we  look  upon  the 
sporting  of  the  wild  beast,  not  knowing  how  soon 
its  sport  may  give  place  to  rage,  and  its  harmless 
activity  change  to  a  superhuman  destructiveness. 
But  while  the  ocean  always  and  everywhere  im- 
presses the  human  mind  with  the  idea  of  unlim- 
ited power,  there  are  times  and  seasons  in  its  life 
when  its  majestic  force  comes  out  in  bolder  form 
and  thrills  us  with  a  more  awesome  wonder. 
When,  for  illustration,  turning  as  some  restless 
monster  from  one  side  to  the  other,  he  begins  to 
push  his  mighty  masses  in  upon  the  land,  what 
power  can  oppose  his  progress  or  bid  back  his  on- 
sweeping  billows?  Slowly  and  majestically  turn 
his  quickened  depths  toward  the  land;  higher  and 
higher  rises  each  successive  wave ;  farther  and 
still  farther  up  upon  the  shore  he  throws  his  tidal 
fullness,  and  then,  while  we  look,  he  reverses  the 
motion  of  his  liquid  masses,  and  with  an  energy 
that  none  can  hinder,  and  with  a  retreat  that  no 
power  may  cut  off,  rolls  them  back  again  into  the 
hollow  of  the  great  deep. 

The    storm   is  even    a   grander    exhibition  of 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  167 

the  ocean's  power  than  the  tide.  When  the 
heavens  grow  black  above  his  uneasy  masses,  and 
lurid  lightning  cuts  this  blackness  into  horrible 
gashes ;  when  the  winds,  as  if  let  loose  from  the 
gates  of  hell,  whip  into  foam  the  sweeping  billows 
until  one  would  think  the  deep  were  hoary;  when 
there  succeeds  to  the  momentary  calm,  which  is 
itself  frightful,  the  first  burst  of  the  hurricane,  and 
to  that  low  moaning  and  indistinct  muttering  of 
mighty  wrath,  the  thunder  of  the  wild  billows 
coming  forth  rank  after  rank  from  their  garrison 
in  the  deep ;  when  these  voices  are  all  answered 
back  by  the  angry  voices  of  the  sky ;  when  the 
deep  below  calls  unto  the  deep  above,  then  how 
puny  seems  the  noblest  conception  of  human 
power — how  majestically  terrible  the  aroused 
might  of  the  great  ocean  ! 

With  this  sight  before  your  eyes,  turn  unto  that 
of  which  it  is  the  symbol. 

"  The  voice  of  the  Lord  is  upon  the  waters  .  .  . 
which  stilleth  the  noise  of  the  seas,  the  noise  of 
their  waves,  and  the  tumult  of  the  people." 

The  Divine  purposes  as  they  manifest  them- 
selves in  human  history  are  not  only  irresistible, 
but  they  move  on  to  their  end  through  the  use  of 
the  humblest  instrumentalities,  through  agencies 
and  influences  which   seem    contemptible  to   hu- 


i68  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

man  eyes.  This  is  the  grandest  conceivable 
exhibition  of  measureless  force.  When  power 
can  afford  to  be  parsimonious  of  her  resources; 
when  she  can  accomplish  her  ends  through  the 
help  of  the  most  humble  allies,  then  it  is  that  she 
arrays  herself  in  her  most  glorious  apparel  and 
lifts  to  her  head  her  most  resplendent  crown. 
Of  such  exhibitions  of  power  the  history  of 
our  world  is  full.  When  their  Divine  Leader  in 
the  olden  day  would,  for  His  chosen  people,  con- 
quer the  menacing  host  of  the  Midianites,  He 
sends  against  them,  not  the  thirty  thousand  which 
were  at  His  command,  but  three  hundred  only; 
He  smites  the  giant  of  Gath  with  a  pebble  from  a 
stripling's  sling ;  scatters  an  army  by  the  flash  of 
a  lamp  and  the  blare  of  a  trumpet;  revolutionizes 
the  world  by  twelve  fishermen ;  reforms  the 
church  by  a  single-handed  monk  as  against  the 
power  of  pope  and  prince  and  emperor ;  and 
through  the  centuries,  by  means'  of  the  "  foolish- 
ness of  preaching,"  carries  forward  a  work  over 
which  the  celestial  hierarchies  bend  in  liveliest 
interest,  and  by  which  are  shaped  the  fate  of  na- 
tions and  the  history  of  the  world.  Pictures  these, 
all  of  them,  of  the  ineffable  ease  with  which  the 
purposes  of  the  Divine  administration  work  unto 
their  appointed   end    in  the   development  of  our 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  169 

race.  Then  even  beyond  this  wondrous  exhibition 
reaches  the  resplendent  fullness  of  their  matchless 
and  measureless  power.  Not  only  do  they  em- 
ploy forces  scorned  of  human  judgment,  but  they 
make  readiest  use  of  the  oppositions  of  men  to 
accomplish  their  designs. 

Look  back  upon  old  Babel.  "  Unto  consolida- 
tion, unto  centralization,  unto  unity  let  it  work, 
cried  the  voice  of  the  human  builders."  He  that 
sitteth  in  the  heavens  heard,  and  from  His  throne 
came  forth  this  response  unto  the  children  of 
men :  "  The  Divine  purpose  is  to  scatter  men  over 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and  your  work  will  lend 
itself  readily  to  this  end."  And  what  did  history 
write  down?  Why,  Babel, — that  is,  dispersion. 
So  we  read  unto  this  day. 

Cast  a  glance  into  ancient  Egypt.  Political 
wisdom,  the  power  of  a  despotic  throne,  declares 
the  decree  and  every  man-child  of  the  Israelites 
is  doomed.  But  the  more  the  people  were  op- 
pressed, the  more  they  multiplied  and  grew.  Nay, 
more !  The  very  measure  that  was  designed  to 
render  their  slavery  perpetual  threw  into  the 
court  of  Pharaoh,  there  to  be  trained  in  all  the 
wisdom  of  Egypt,  the  deliverer  of  the  bondsmen. 
As  though  it  were  not  enough  for  the  Divine 
purpose  to  accomplish  deliverance,  it  causes  the 


I70  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

taskmasters  with  their  own  hands  to  break  the 
fetters  they  had  forged,  compels  the  house  of 
Pharaoh  to  nourish  and  to  educate  a  Moses. 
**  He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  shall  laugh." 

Hear  the  echoes  of  this  same  laugh  in  the  west- 
ern world  and  in  our  own  day,  where  insatiate 
ambition  of  American  slavery  for  extension  and 
defense  was  turned  into  the  great  emancipation 
measure  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  take  the 
supreme  illustration,  and  let  it  suffice  for  all. 
With  wicked  hands  men  seized  and  crucified 
heaven's  well-beloved  and  earth's  fairest  Son. 
Yes !  but  Pilate,  with  a  hand  that  he  might  not 
stay,  was  obliged  to  reach  forth  and  write  the  word 
"  King  "  over  the  head  of  the  dying  Jesus ;  Joseph's 
sepulcher  gave  up  to  the  world  an  immortal  name 
and  an  endless  power ;  and  even  the  dumb  cross, 
which  had  been  unwittingly  the  agent  of  death, 
became  a  thing  of  life,  the  standard  of  an  ever- 
increasing  and  invincible  host.  He  who  was  cut 
off  out  of  the  land  without  issue  and  without 
generation,  now  counts  His  children  by  the  thou- 
sands in  every  land  that  is  visited  by  the  sun. 
The  Man  of  sorrows  and  of  death  has  become  the 
joy  and  the  life  of  a  world.  **  Thy  judgments,  O 
God,  are  a  great  deep." 

A  third  characteristic  of  the  great  deep  is  the 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  171 

order  that  controls  all  its  unceasing  movements, 
that  directs  and  tethers  all  the  outreachings  of  its 
mighty  power.  This  would  not  appear  to  the  ob- 
server who  should  for  the  first  time  stand  upon  its 
shores.  To  such  an  one  the  rise  and  fall  of  its 
mighty  waves,  the  incoming  and  the  outgoing  of 
its  tidal  masses  would  indicate  no  order  and  voice 
no  law.  But  if  such  an  observer  should  return 
day  after  day,  and  year  after  year,  to  look  with 
reason's  eye  upon  the  liquid  continent,  he  would 
surely  be  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  underneath 
the  apparent  lawlessness  that  first  impressed  him 
there  is  some  regulative  force  governing  the  seem- 
ingly capricious  movements,  and  dictating  both 
certainty  and  uniformity  to  all  the  manifestations 
of  their  mighty  life.  Such  an  one  would  be  sure  to 
hear,  breaking  forth  from  the  vast  and  weltering 
plain  before  him,  the  words  of  this  mysterious 
voice  :  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther : 
and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed."  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  men  have  stood  now  for  centuries 
looking  out  from  ocean's  shore,  and  with  what 
result  ?  The  table  of  the  tidal  movements  can 
now  be  written  down  years  before  their  occur- 
rence ;  the  equatorial  and  polar  currents  can  now 
be  mapped,  and  the  racing  gulf  streams,  and  the 
yearly  tide- rises,  and  the  mysterious  undertows, 


172  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

these  all  can  be  charted  for  the  guidance  of  the 
adventurous  voyager. 

We  who  by  the  voice  of  the  text  to-day  are 
invited  unto  ocean's  beach  to  learn  our  lesson, 
are  thus  warranted  in  attributing  a  similar  order 
to  the  judgments  of  the  Almighty,  to  the  purposes 
of  the  overruling  Power,  as  these  take  hold  of 
and  manifest  themselves  in  the  affairs  of  our  dis- 
ordered world.  I  know  that  the  philosophy  of 
history  is  yet  but  poorly  understood  and  imper- 
fectly written.  Historians  stand  upon  the  mighty 
beach  of  our  world's  life,  and  in  the  activity  of  its 
great  forces  see  nothing  but  so  much  confused 
and  aimless  motion ;  so  much  result  and  effect  of 
human  passion  and  human  greed ;  so  much  out- 
writing  of  the  uncontrolled  desires  of  human 
hearts  and  the  ungoverned  purposes  of  the  human 
will.  Hence  and  through  all  the  centuries  they 
have  been  lifting  up  this  voice :  "  Where  is  the 
promise  of  His  coming?  for  since  the  fathers  fell 
asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the 
beginning  of  the  creation." 

But  this  is  only  because  these  observers  have 
not  stood  long  enough  upon  the  world-encircling 
beach,  or  long  enough  with  eyes  opened  by  the 
touch  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  marked  down  the 
movements    upon   which    they  looked.     This   is 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  173 

because  the  eye  which  sees  here  is  the  one  that 
opened  in  its  httle  cradle  but  yesterday ;  because 
the  human  mind  finite,  and  infantile,  has  here  to 
do  with  the  infinite,  with  the  great  immeasurable 
days  of  the  Lord.  So  centuries  ago,  the  astrono- 
mer, directing  his  gaze  to  yonder  star,  cried  out, 
*'  It  does  not  move;  the  shining  point  is  a  fixed  one 
in  the  mighty  star  field."  But  now,  to-day,  the 
astronomer  directs  his  telescopic  vision  unto  the 
same  star,  and  this  is  the  voice  that  we  hear : 
"Ah,  it  has  moved  !  The  glittering  point  was  not  a 
fixed  diamond  pinned  upon  the  bosom  of  the 
night."  The  first  observer  was  mistaken  because 
he  looked  upon  a  sun  the  seconds  of  whose 
mighty  orbit  were  so  many  of  earth's  centuries ; 
he  drew  a  false  conclusion  because  there  was  not 
time  enough  between  his  cradle  and  his  grave  for 
him  to  learn  the  stupendous  truth. 

So  are  we  bidden,  by  the  analogy  of  the  text, 
to  believe  it  is  with  the  gulf  stream  of  the  Divine 
purpose  in  the  ocean  of  time.  Through  the  ages 
one  increasing  purpose  runs,  and  with  unresting 
and  invincible  force  is  sweeping  onward  to  the 
end  of  universal  order  and  everlasting  righteous- 
ness. That  the  Divine  purpose  in  human  history 
does  more  in  this  direction,  that  it  has  so  moved, 
this   year   of   our    Lord   nineteen   hundred   and 


174  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

three  bears  unmistakable  and  convincing  witness. 
America  is  better  than  the  republic  whose  ashes 
are  strewn  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber — better  as 
Rome  was  better  than  the  dynasties  that  rose  and 
fell  to  the  music  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris. 
The  current  of  the  overruling  purpose  has  swept 
our  world  forward — forward  unto  a  larger  knowl- 
edge and  a  wider  wisdom — forward  unto  a  nobler 
freedom  and  a  higher  civilization — forward  unto 
a  larger  type  of  the  individual  man  and  a  grander 
form  of  the  nation — forward  unto  a  fuller  under- 
standing and  a  more  abounding  enjoyment  of  the 
teaching  and  the  promise  of  the  Cross. 

No  doubt  there  are  isolated  events,  anomalous 
plans,  great  crises  and  centuries  in  our  world's 
life  which  seem  to  be  so  many  retrograde  currents. 
So  there  are  in  the  arctic  region  and  upon 
the  bosom  of  the  current  that  is  setting  toward 
the  equator,  surface  waves  which  flow  toward 
the  pole.  There  is  upon  the  bosom  of  the  in- 
coming tide  a  multitude  of  wavelets  whose  move- 
ment is  away  from  the  shore.  Granted  all  this — 
yet  shall  the  equator  bathe  itself  in  the  waters 
that  have  poured  from  the  northern  sea  and 
the  continent  receive  upon  its  majestic  front 
the  far-resounding  dash  of  the  tidal  wave.  So, 
taught   by  the   intuition  of  the   soul   and  by  the 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  175 

past  progress  of  the  human  race,  as  well  as  by  the 
declared  analogy  of  the  text,  must  we  not  say 
that  the  current  of  human  history  shall  yet  lift 
itself  up  into  and  break  upon  the  front  of  the 
great  white  throne  in  the  exulting  joy  of  this 
millennial  chorus  :  **  The  kingdoms  of  this  world 
are  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord,  and  of  His 
Christ;  and  He  shall  reign  forever  and  ever."  So 
shall  order  grow  out  of  that  which  we  now  deem 
confusion,  and  so  shall  the  judgments  of  the  In- 
finite One — now  a  great  and  weltering  maze  before 
the  eyes  of  men — stretch  themselves  out  as  a  sea 
of  glass,  mirrored  in  which  the  universe  shall 
read  for  evermore  the  grace  and  the  glory,  the 
wisdom  and  the  power  of  Him  who  is  the  Creator 
of  worlds,  the  Father  of  men,  and  the  King  of  all 
our  earth. 

Thus  standing  by  invitation  of  the  text  upon  the 
beach  of  the  deep  blue  sea,  have  we  learned  the 
lesson  given  unto  us, — unresting  action,  immeas- 
urable power,  immutable  order.  And  how  won- 
derfully majestic  and  sublime  is  the  creation  of 
the  Almighty  that  to-day  lifts  up  before  us  these 
glorious  attributes !  If  you  will  open  your  eyes, 
you  will  see  the  ocean  in  uniform  of  blue  and 
white  flowing  unto  every  shore ;  if  you  will  open 
your  ears,  you  will  catch  the  music  of  its  perpetual 


1/6  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

thunder  as  it  girdles  the  globe,  and  rises  in  mighty 
chorus  to  the  skies.  In  its  embrace  the  opposite 
poles  of  earth  are  in  contact;  great  islands  are 
only  so  many  phosphorescent  atoms  quivering  in 
its  waters,  and  whole  continents  are  but  the  jewels 
that  it  wears  upon  its  broad  bosom. 

But  there  is  yet  a  mightier  sea  than  earth's 
great  ocean.  It  is  the  great  deep  of  the  Divine 
judgments,  the  great  deep  of  the  self-manifesta- 
tions of  the  Infinite.  On  its  broad  surface  glit- 
tering constellations  are  the  phosphorescent  light, 
and  uncounted  systems  of  suns  and  of  worlds, 
the  jewels  with  which  its  raiment  sparkles.  Out 
yonder  to  Sirius,  from  which  the  swift-darting 
light  comes  wearily  after  the  lapse  of  centuries — 
out  yonder  to  the  unresolved  star  dust  of  the 
Milky  Way,  where  even  imagination  grows  sick 
with  its  awful  flight — unto  those  distant  shores  I 
can  see  the  waters  of  this  mighty  deep  flowing, 
and  while  I  listen  I  can  hear  their  echoes  as  in 
sublime  doxology  they  rise  to  the  Infinite  Throne. 
A  sea  whose  waters  lave  every  shore  within  this 
boundless  universe — this  is  the  great  deep  of  the 
Divine  judgments.  A  sea  of  infinity  pouring 
itself  round  immensity — this  is  the  self-manifes- 
tation of  the  Infinite,  this  the  propulsive  energy 
and  the  controlling  force  of  the  Divine  purpose. 


TWO  GREAT  DEEPS  177 

Upon  this  great  deep  you  are  embarked — a 
voyager  whether  you  will  or  no.  Is  not  this 
true  ?  Are  you  not  so  embarked  ?  By  all  the 
power  that  you  possess  can  you  abrogate  your 
gift  of  life,  or  even  reverse  the  motion  of  your 
being  ?  Have  you  any  hand  of  choice  or  might 
to  expunge  or  rewrite  the  decree  which  declares 
that  you  shall  go  forward  whither  you  know 
not,  try  a  course  that  you  cannot  map  down  ? 
Surely  you  are  embarked  as  a  voyager  whether 
you  will  or  no. 

What  shall  be  your  preparations,  your  out- 
fit, for  this  mysterious  and  adventurous  voyage  ? 
I  can  see  the  young  man,  resplendent  in  the 
glory  that  his  tailor  has  loaned  him,  turning  his 
feathery  yacht,  without  compass  or  anchor,  with- 
out strength  of  spar  or  width  of  beam,  into  the 
mighty  billows  and  raging  storms  of  the  broad 
Atlantic.  The  sight  is  not  a  pleasant  one.  It  is 
such  a  mockery  of  reality.  It  is  such  a  travesty 
upon  human  wisdom  and  human  strength. 

So  I  can  see  a  human  life  swept  forward  over  a 
deep  that  it  cannot  fathom,  into  storms  that  it  can- 
not resist,  unto  a  harbor  that  it  cannot  foresee,  and 
all  the  while  self-confident,  self-complacent,  ir- 
reverent, prayerless,  not  even  serious.  This  also 
is  a  pitiful  spectacle.  It  jars  upon  reason.  It  is 
12 


178  THE  STAFF  METHOD 

SO  out  of  keeping  with  the  nature  of  things.  It 
is  such  a  pathetic  and  needless  exposure  of  the 
weak  and  fearing  spirit  of  a  man.  Against  this 
sense-madness  lovingly  and  earnestly  I  warn  you 
to-day. 

The  outfit  which  you,  my  fellow-man,  need  for 
your  adventurous  voyage  is  not  the  natty  costume 
of  any  one  of  this  world's  fashions,  but  the  old 
and  simple  garment  of  a  reverent  faith.  That 
which  is  consonant  with  your  being,  and  suited 
to  your  necessities  beyond  even  the  power  of  your 
imagination  to  perfect  it,  is  the  child-heart  within 
you,  taking  hold  of  the  Infinite  Father  above 
you,  reaching  out  unto  Him  who  is  wise  to  direct, 
pitiful  to  succor,  and  almighty  to  save — director 
of  currents — ruler  of  waves — master  of  storms. 

So  equipped  with  this  filial  spirit,  you  will  be 
able  to  pass  through  all  dark  days  in  calmness 
and  with  courage,  and  when  the  hour  of  storm 
and  stress  shall  break,  you  will  be  prepared  to 
sing  your  every  fear  to  sleep  with  the  sweet  lullaby 
of  this  beautiful  and  blessed  trust : — 

For,  though  from  out  our  bourne  of  time  and  place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

"When  I  have  crossed  the  bar. 


